


Silent City

by dire18



Series: Elegia [1]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Action, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Horror, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire18/pseuds/dire18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One morning Lalli fails to return, and Emil learns that the Silent World demands a high fee for passage.</p><p>A side story taking place prior to chapter 8 and the introduction of the ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Emil woke on his bunk to the sound of peaceful near-silence. He could hear wind outside the tank’s walls and the rhythmic noise of his crewmates, seemingly all still sleeping. To be more precise, he could hear Mikkel’s snores drowning out the rest of the team. Emil considered it a testament to his personal adaptability that the truly alarming noises the medic made in his sleep barely even troubled him anymore. It was quite the contrast from the first night Emil had tried to bunk down in the man’s proximity. He had woken in a panic at the startling sound of what could only be someone choking to death. It had taken some getting used to, but eventually Emil had grown accustomed to the ghastly noises after finally being convinced they weren’t a death rattle.

The sleeping quarters were mostly dark, the only illumination a faint grey creeping in through the half-open door from the pilot’s cabin two rooms away. The room was chilly—Tuuri had taken to lowering the heat in the middle of the night to conserve fuel—but even their threadbare blankets made for a warm and cozy bed. Prior to the expedition, Emil would have never guessed that such worn old bedding could rival the plush blankets he remembered from childhood, but after after a long day of salvage, they were the absolute pinnacle of luxury. 

The contrast of warm bed to cold room was certainly hindering motivation to get up and start the morning’s chores, that was for certain. There were plans to be reviewed and gear to be checked and the world’s blandest breakfast to eat, but none of it felt particularly urgent at the moment. Instead, Emil rearranged his pillow, shifting to his side and wrapping an arm around it with a contented sigh. He had the slight nagging feeling that there was something he was forgetting but in the languid haze of the morning, it was easy to ignore. The Sigrun-sized lump hidden under a mountain of blankets on the captain’s cot indicated there was no immediate need for him to get up and start bustling around either. 

Besides, Emil thought as he closed his eyes, they had earned it lately. He couldn’t recall the name of the city they were lurking near even when fully awake – some garbled-sounding Danish word that sounded like talking through a mouth stuffed with a sock – but Sigrun had been even more ferociously enthusiastic than usual toward their book pillaging missions ever since they had arrived at its outskirts. She had declared the place an oyster ripe for them to steal the gold right out of and demanded they capitalize on every scrap of daylight possible. The previous few days had seen them up practically at dawn’s break and returning to base only when the sky began to flash hues of sunset red and orange. Despite striking deeper and deeper into the city’s depths each day, they had been lucky and only encountered a few small, easily-avoided nests on the far outskirts and a weak roving pack of what might have once been deer in their happier days. 

The cold snap was favoring them, the captain had said. The local denizens must not want to leave their holes. It was rare good fortune for the crew to come across such a peaceful site. Yet despite the relative lack of action, the long hours and constant need to stay alert had Emil feeling especially worn out. To make matters worse, it was hurting his pride that he alone of the fighting trio seemed to be in need of a break. Nothing ever seemed to dampen Sigrun’s spirits or energy, and Lalli possessed inhuman reservoirs of endurance despite the scout working across both days and nights. It was embarrassing that Emil was on his own in feeling stressed over the pace they had been keeping. He couldn't stand that the others might consider him lazy or weak. 

Emil burrowed deeper into his blankets, trying to block out the insidious thoughts of inadequacy and just focus on the tactile things around him to help fall back asleep. Mikkel’s snores were tapering from a loud honk to a more reasonable raspy inhalation. The wind outside created a faint high howl as it skittered through some of the exhaust vents carved into the tank’s battered outer shell. The morning light infiltrating from the cabin windows was getting brighter but the half-closed door kept the room mostly swathed in a comforting dark. 

The morning light. 

The nagging feeling Emil had been ignoring suddenly shifted into clear focus. He jolted upright, blankets falling from shoulders to pool around his waist. The exposure to the chill room helped drive the last traces of sleep away, but he didn’t really need the help waking up anymore. 

It was already light out and no one was up yet. What time was it? 

Emil swung off his cot, all thoughts of indulging in some extra rest forgotten. The floor was like ice against his bare feet as he hopped forward to throw the door to the adjacent hall fully open. The barracks were flooded with light, the crew responding to the disturbance with a variety of responsiveness. Reynir stirred and pulled his pillow over his head, Kitty chirping in protest as her perch – Reynir’s chest – relocated itself beneath her. The only sight left of him was his absurd mass of hair. No further movement from his bunk was made. Tuuri made a sleepy, confused noise from her cot and blinked out in Emil’s direction from a puffy tangle of bangs. Mikkel coughed and sputtered on a snore and then to all appearances, fell right back asleep. 

Sigrun never seemed to lose a beat even after an abrupt awakening. Only a moment passed before she was upright, tossing a mask at Tuuri and pelting a second off Reynir’s pillow. The Icelander swatted a belated hand in the air at the projectile a good few seconds after its impact. Another moment, and the captain was already swinging off her cot moments after Emil left the room himself. 

If it was chilly in the living quarters then it was frigid in the driver’s area. The large windows were much less insulated than the tank’s walls, and even with the automated heat and the rising sun, the sheets of glass had a film of frost outside. Someone may even need to go outside and chip at the ice with a pick before there would be enough visibility for Tuuri to see by. 

Emil didn’t care about the frozen windows. His attention was reserved for the little analog clock built into the tank’s control panel. 08:06, it read back to him, the numbers faintly back-lit in a pale glow. 

Emil swallowed, the impulse an unexpected and unbidden one. He ran a hand through his hair, didn’t preen it, only tousled it. He was already coming up with plausible justifications. It was still early in the morning. They had been working some really long hours lately, and on top of that, the weather sucked lately. Nothing about this needed to be unreasonable. 

Sigrun appeared behind him. Even a tangled red nest of hair and eyes still gummy with sleep didn’t detract from her air of authority as she leaned over his shoulder. “What’s going on? Did you hear something on the radar? What—” the line of questions abruptly stopped. She tilted her head, perplexed, a crease appearing in her brow. 

“Hey, what time is it? Why isn’t the scout back yet?” 

*******************************************

The captain roused everyone out of bed and pulled Tuuri into the pilot’s den for an interrogation. After a few minutes of consulting the skald on the topic, Sigrun announced that it was apparently common enough for a scouting mission to run long, and there was nothing they needed to do but carry on the day as normal (and to try and make up the lost two hours of prep time, the captain pointedly added). 

“What can I do to help?” asked the Icelander when Sigrun was finished with her declaration, the kitten clutched in his crossed arms. 

“Nothing that I’m probably going to care about.” The captain was already turning back to the map spread across the console. She waved a hand vaguely in Mikkel’s direction. “Go bother him.” 

And so they dispersed to start the morning. 

*******************************************

The crew passed the first hour in good spirits. The captain pointed at things on the map. Occasionally she grilled Tuuri on how she should interpret some of the ink marks that had been scrawled over routes. The skald supplied quick answers to Sigrun’s questions, sounding by turns resolute and apologetic. Reynir sat in the doorway and watched Kitty investigate some fresh snow while Mikkel prepared breakfast nearby. When it was ready, they ate together in a semi-circle outside the tank, Sigrun mocking the food and Mikkel the very image of serenity as he refused to take any bait from her jibes. Tuuri and Reynir chatted about something that had Reynir looking thoughtful and Tuuri smiling. 

Emil answered any comments or questions put to him. He ate his food and for once didn’t mind its bland taste. He cast glances toward the overgrown trail Lalli had disappeared down the night before and tried not to let it bother him when the path was empty each time. 

The second hour saw a decline in banter and conversations trail off as breakfast finished. By then, Emil wasn’t the only one watching the trail. Mikkel collected dishes and Tuuri returned to the cabin as Sigrun sent Emil into the sleeping quarters to gear up. She didn’t want them to stand around wasting even more time than they already had, she told him, but Emil noticed she went back to the pilot’s cabin to watch the radar with Tuuri instead of starting post-breakfast inventory detail as she typically would. 

Emil got dressed for the day. The process was more bothersome than usual. The black sweater he wore under his thick jacket wound up backwards on first go. His fingers felt a bit clumsy with his bootlaces. It was aggravating that it should be so difficult. The task finally complete, he wandered back outside of the tank where Mikkel was cleaning the morning’s dishes. This time he made no pretense of subtlety. Now he simply watched the trail and waited. 

By the third hour, the mood in the tank had become downright grim. It was now more than five hours past Lalli’s expected return. For the third time that day the entire crew (minus one) gathered together and this time no one made jokes. 

Tuuri had reclaimed her driver’s seat and was listening to Sigrun talk. She seemed visibly upset at whatever the captain was telling her. The Dane leaned near the door frame, arms folded, face impassive as the Icelander clutched the kitten to himself and asked Mikkel something in a quiet voice. Mikkel gave a dry reply absence of any of his usual sardonic humor. He seemed far more interested in listening to Sigrun and Tuuri’s discussion though he made no move to interject into it. Everyone talking save for Reynir seemed tense and snappy.

Emil sat on the office’s corner desk, silent, alone. He should probably be listening to what Sigrun and Tuuri were arguing about but he wasn't paying much attention. He wasn’t thinking of them, or Mikkel and the Icelander. 

Five hours. 

Tuuri had told him at breakfast that Lalli had occasionally been a couple of hours late getting home, once even four hours late when he was still in training (and Emil was horrified to consider that Lalli had been sent on such perilous undertakings even as a child). There were all sorts of boring non-dangerous reasons it could happen. Icy paths that forced a slower pace. Unexpected snowbanks that needed circumvented. Healthy animals presenting themselves to be hunted. Nothing that meant any sort of trouble at all, she had been quick to reassure. Just normal inconveniences that happened every now and again. 

But five hours late wasn’t the result of an inconvenience. Not for Lalli. Lalli’s daily returns were a steady constant Emil had finally made a reluctant peace with over the course of the winter. He didn’t like that the scout left the sanctuary of the crew each night to venture alone into the hostile unknown, but Lalli had proven his doubts wrong again and again with his homecoming each morning. 

It was something Emil had been taking for granted. He realized that now. He had been fighting to keep a horrible speculation at bay all morning but suddenly it was threatening to lurch out of the back of his mind into full consideration. The nocturnal excursions were dangerous, they were _so dangerous,_ they were so much more dangerous than anything they did as a group in the day, what could he possibly have been thinking, just stepping aside and allowing Lalli to go out alone each night? 

“Oy, Emil. …Emil!” 

Emil jumped, startled to be yanked out of his own thoughts. He looked up from the stain on floor he had been staring at. Somehow he had become the center of attention among the entire rest of the crew. Their expressions, even Sigrun’s, shared a universal element that Emil dazedly realized must have been concern. 

“Are you alright? You look awful,” Sigrun said. 

“I—ah—” Emil stammered. He meant to answer her that yes, of course he was fine, why was she even worried about _him_ at a time like this, when he realized his hands were clenched around the edge of the table hard enough that his knuckles were left faintly white. “Oh.” He relaxed his grip and winced at the accompanying ache. Emil clenched and unclenched his sore fingers, staring at them as he did so. The image felt a little disconnected, as though he were viewing a photograph instead of something right before him. 

“Now, take a deep breath,” the captain ordered. “And then take a few more right afterward, too.” 

Emil did as he was told. He took a slow breath. He took a second. The effort felt incongruous with his pulse, which thumped too-quickly in his head. It helped, though. A few more and reality shifted a little back into place as the panic subsided. In a way, the clarity was much worse. 

Emil met Sigrun’s eyes and held them. “We have to go look for him.” 

She shook her head, her usually smiling mouth pulling into an impassive frown surely worthy of Mikkel’s envy. “We can’t, buddy. I’m sorry.” 

The outright denial was like getting punched. It stung. “It’s mad dangerous,” Sigrun continued. “If he ran into a nest and stirred things up, the whole area could be teeming. We go in and none of us may make it out alive. I’ve seen it happen too many times. One casualty becomes two, or three, or everyone. It’s too risky once a site’s been compromised.” 

“The trolls would have come for us by now if they were woken up,” Emil retorted. “We’re out here pretty wide open, aren’t we? You’re just scared to even try to find him.” 

It was an unfair accusation and he knew it even as he said it. Sigrun was the bravest person he had ever met, save for Lalli himself, but the past several hours’ bottled up anxiety and fear were starting to manifest themselves in some ugly ways. Haughtiness was an easy emotion to fall back on when stressed. Still, as Sigrun’s eyes narrowed at him, Emil wondered if he had gone too far. 

“Emil,” Tuuri snapped before the captain could make any reply. “Sigrun is right.” Tuuri looked worried, maybe as worried as Emil. Her face was pale and she fidgeted her hands nervously, but she spoke with enviable conviction. “If he woke up a hive, we would get overrun. And we don’t even know what direction he may have ended up taking. He’s not much for direct paths.” 

“So we split up to look, or we just try different directions until we find him. We can’t just do _nothing_.” Emil felt a twinge of pain in his hands as he unconsciously clenched the table ledge again. He forced his hands to relax and took another deliberately slow breath. Why was it so hard to get a grip on things? He dropped his gaze to the dusty wooden floor of the tank, suddenly unable to look at anyone directly. “We can’t just leave him out there alone.” 

There was a tense moment in which no one spoke. Then Sigrun crossed the room and put a light hand on Emil’s shoulder. “I know it sucks. It’s the worst part of our jobs. It really is. But there’s nothing you can do.” Her tone was deliberate, it was the Captain’s Voice she rarely used except to convey utter seriousness. It was a tone reserved for only the worst of times. “Wigging out is not going to help. There’s nothing we can do but wait and give him time to see if it makes it back on his own.” 

“How long?” Emil asked, miserable. Gods, he had seen Lalli only yesterday…only last night…He felt queasy. 

Sigrun’s voice, normally so playful, had become that of a dispassionate stranger. “Field protocol for a small recon mission like ours is no more than one day given to MIA soldiers. Since you lot are all rookies, I’ll give you an extra one on top of it. Two days. Two days, Emil, and you listen to this too, Tuuri.” Sigrun leaned forward and forced Emil to meet her eyes again, her voice still calm and measured. “After two days have passed, we have to reasonably assume he’s not coming back.” 

Emil stared at her, mouth agape. He tried to reply but couldn’t seem to string a sensible one together. Her grip on his shoulder tightened reassuringly. “There’s nothing moping around is going to help, so try not to worry about it, okay? And in the meantime…in the meantime, just try and get some rest.” It was the closest thing to sympathy Emil had ever heard from Sigrun, and it didn't help any. 

She released her hand and looked over toward Mikkel. “Get base on the radio. Let them know the salvage missions are temporarily suspended while we wait out a forty-eight hour recovery period for the scout, currently missing in action. And tell them not to let her brother know yet, either,” she added, eyeing Tuuri’s hunched and unhappy form. 

“And if they ask for our intentions after forty-eight hours?” Mikkel asked. 

Sigrun hesitated with only the briefest of pauses. “Tell them that after two days, if he hasn’t come back, he’s to be formally declared killed in action. We’ll talk to them about next steps then, when it comes to that.” 

Emil opened the hatch above the office desk and threw up down the side of the tank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first fanfic, inspired by the awesome works others have written for SSSS. Tags will be updated as the story progresses. I hope you enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

It had been over Emil’s protests that Sigrun had set the official two-day countdown to start from the time Lalli was first discovered missing, 08:00 hours. The little clock on the pilot’s console now displayed a dim 01:38. It was more than seventeen hours into what might very well be the final forty-eight of the scout’s formal classification as a living person. The captain was alone in the cabin, sprawled across in the pilot’s chair, her boots propped up against the edge of the shotgun-side seats, arms crossed and eyes closed but still cognizant of her surroundings. It was otherwise silent in the tank, thank the gods.

There wasn’t any particular role that needed filled at this late hour, at least, none other than scouting reconnaissance. Their camping location was secluded and new enough that a sentry wasn’t particularly required. Lingering too long in one spot in risked discovery. Sigrun had felt the previous location was too exposed to bunker down for an additional two nights and ordered that they relocate about a kilometer and a half away to a grove in the nearby forest, a clearing surrounded on three sides that she had more confidence in. 

It was close enough to where they had been parked that Lalli should be able to track them (as she had been forced to insist to Emil numerous times), and besides, the scout had been the one to find the current campsite for them in the first place. They should escape notice here for a few days, especially considering the surprisingly low count of live nests they’d been running into in the city ruins. 

So there wasn’t any real responsibility that necessitated Sigrun still be awake and keeping watch during the night; she simply didn’t feel like turning in for bed yet despite the late hour and felt most comfortable in the cabin. She was certain she wasn’t going to see anyone materialize in the wash of moonlight beyond the tank’s windows. They were alone here in the wilderness and the evening was going to pass without incident, but she still felt compelled to keep an eye out…just in case. 

It hadn’t been a very good day. Morale was running on fumes and she was worried at the low depths it seemed to have plummeted to over the course of just a few hours. And then there was the sitting about on one’s hands. 

Sigrun knew that calling off the salvage expeditions made sense for a lot of reasons. Walking blindly into any unknown situation was foolish. Doing so immediately on the heels of a probable casualty, one that could have kicked up gods-know-what sort of troll activity, was suicidal. Not to mention the current state of her crew’s battle readiness (at the moment: Very suspect). 

It was the right decision to call a halt to the salvage trips but it was a pretty bad one at the same time too. Sigrun hated being cooped up in even the best of circumstances. It made her feel restless and edgy to not have anything to do. And sitting around and waiting for a lost crew member was the circumstances. It was depressing, unproductive, and most annoying, dangerous. All of her self-preservation instincts warned her that she should have already cut their losses and insisted they clear out for an area that wasn’t potentially compromised. She wished she hadn’t offered the extension on the one-day recovery period but Sigrun had sensed it would be a necessary sacrifice to mollify the team. 

_Rookies_ , she thought. They were always so difficult. They never fully grasped where they were, how truly deep the inherent danger in what they did ran, until something like this happened and then it was always a whole big thing. 

The Icelandic kid seemed sad because Tuuri was sad, and Sigrun did admit that it was reasonable for Tuuri to be upset. The scout was family to her, and losing family is always the hardest. The little tuft-head had solid justification to be down, yet she wasn’t even having the most drastic reaction to the day’s events. That distinction belonged to Emil: Pacing, getting sick out windows, staring gloomily off into nothing, starting up again with that lunatic notion that they should actually go out and scrub the vicinity for a single M.I.A soldier, seeking one lost and probably dead man in an entire fallen city. 

Not that the idea didn’t have a certain appeal despite being a bloody awful one. Sigrun hated shying away from a fight no matter how poor the odds, and on top of it, she quite liked the scout. He was a weird little guy but good to have around. Having someone familiar from home made Tuuri feel reassured, and Emil seemed to have gotten particularly attached to him. Sigrun had never been able to understand that odd friendship but the cleanser was obviously pleased to have the scout around to fuss over. 

And that’s saying nothing in consideration of the forfeiture of Lalli’s professional abilities. Sigrun did not relish the difficulty they were going to face in getting safely around without reconnaissance. The scout’s loss was certainly going to be inconvenient indeed. 

The captain arched her back and stretched like a big cat until something in her spine cracked, yawned loudly, and returned to the most urgent task she’d had all day: Glaring at the radar’s monitor. It defied her by remaining dark, just as it had since morning. She quelled the urge to hit it in frustration. Smashing it would just wake the others and everyone needed rest. Sigrun hated problems she couldn’t shoot to death or will into submission with sheer tenacity, but this was one beyond her power to fix. 

Despite her noble sacrifice to refrain from laying waste to the uncooperative radar, she heard the sound of the door opening from the sleeping quarters behind her. Someone was trying to be quiet about it but not doing the best job. Heavy footsteps told her that it was Mikkel. She half-turned her head to acknowledge him as he approached, glancing at him through half-lidded indigo eyes obscured by the fall of red bangs that framed her face. The two hadn’t had a chance to talk privately all day, stuck as they had been relaying news back to base and dealing with the emotional fallout from the rest of the crew. She realized she had been craving a chance to speak to him alone. Only Mikkel, in addition to Sigrun herself, was keeping up a normal composure. The normalcy would be refreshing. 

“Shame about the kid,” she said as he entered the cabin. She retracted her feet from the shotgun chair and gestured for him to take the seat. 

“You don’t know he won’t make it back.” Mikkel took the offered spot, sitting heavily with a sigh. He looked tired. Sigrun noticed that he glanced at the radar, though his typically impassive expression didn’t change. He was dressed, like her, in his sleeping clothes, neither with anything heavier on than a sweater. She had been keeping the heat on full blast to combat the chilliness. After all, there was now much less urgency in retaining fuel for an entire winter than there had been yesterday. 

“Oh, come on. You don’t really think that. No one ever makes it back after being, what is it now? Fifteen hours late from recon. No one ever makes it back after _five_.” 

“It’s been seventeen hours, actually. And he might. He’s surprisingly capable despite appearances and the...social quirks. But I don’t think it’s important what I think. I think it’s important what _you_ think.” 

“Me?” She reclined back with another yawn. She’d have to get some sleep soon too, even if tomorrow promised to be another torture of inactivity in the gloomy tank. 

“You. Your attitude in this whole affair has been rather blunt. The younger ones look to you for reassurance and you’ve all but outright said ‘I think Lalli got eaten by a troll.’” 

“Woah, hey, there.” Sigrun pointed a finger at him in accusation. “I would never say that, the scout’s too scrawny for anything to even bother with eating.” 

“You’re only proving my point. You’ve been callous and overt about the odds you’ve placed on Lalli’s life, and it’s causing some distress among the team. Killing hope, as it were.” 

“He gets bad odds because the odds are always bad for us out here. And maybe hope needs to be killed,” she answered quietly. “They were going to live this sooner or later. If you get into soldiering and see action, you’ll eventually find yourself here. How many friends have _you_ lost in troll skirmishes?” 

“Plenty,” he admitted. “Too many. But this is an inexperienced team. I just think you could be more tactful about things. And we still have to decide where we go from here if Lalli doesn’t return.” 

“I’ve been doing some thinking about that.” Sigrun propped her elbows on the console and rested her chin in the palms of her hands, staring out into the trees visible beyond their hiding spot. The moon was bright, a good omen, but it wasn’t bringing them much in the way of luck tonight. “We don’t have a crew if we don’t have a scout. Running blind is surefire disaster. I reckon the best thing we can do is trace back to where we picked up the stowaway and call for rescue. It’s close enough yet.” 

“That assumes a ship will even respond to a distress call with non-immune in our ranks. We’d have to be miraculously lucky for a quarantine vessel to be in the area.” 

“It’s still a better bet than trying to make it all the way back on foot without a set of eyes outside the tank. We should at least try our luck before resigning ourselves to a long land crossing.” 

Mikkel didn’t answer, the silence a tacit agreement despite the longshot nature of retrieval by sea. Neither option had much appeal but trying for extraction by ship carried far less risk than an overland run would, especially without someone scouting the path ahead. Even retracing the steps they had already made across Denmark would be perilous. 

The pair fell quiet for a while, sitting and watching the view beyond. The only movement were the branches of the trees and the slow lengthening of the shadows they cast. 

Sigrun was the first one to speak up again. “It is the pits, though, having to watch the kids face their first team loss like this.” 

“The first ones always hurts.” 

“They all always hurt. You just have less carapace for it the first few times around so you take it straight on the chin. You staying up or going to bed?” 

“I’ll stay up a little while longer if you are.” 

“Sure,” she replied, not wanting to admit that she was glad for the company but relieved all the same. She shrugged, trying to be sound more upbeat than she felt. “Who knows? Maybe the twig will limp right out of those woods with a broken ankle and you’ll already be handy to do some medicking.” 

“Perhaps,” he agreed, and Sigrun knew by his tone that Mikkel didn’t really expect Lalli to return any more than she did. This wasn’t sentry duty they were sitting. It was a wake. 

If she were being truthful with herself, Sigrun would have to admit that even she had gotten lax with the quintessential rule for emotional survival she had learned in her career as a solider: Don’t Get Too Attached. Teammates became friends you cared about and then got transferred to a different regiment, or worse, killed. It always left a wound when a friend was lost in action, and so Sigrun had learned to develop a friendly arm’s-length companionship with those she served alongside. She was good at being comrades and also good about not letting anyone get too close. Attachments only led to heartache. 

Yet, contrary to her rule, this winter had proven so easy and fun with her ragtag little crew, even the useless Icelandic accident, that Sigrun had let her guard down. She had forgotten to keep consciously aware of how easy it would be for the Silent World to claim Lalli or Emil or even herself as a casualty. Now it had happened and she was left saddened and even a little scared at the prospect of losing their only scout. 

The loss of his skills might not even be the worst part, compared to how bad a fracture his disappearance was seemingly breaking into her crew. Mikkel was a rock. He had been in this position many times over and knew how to roll with the blows inevitably suffered in a martial life. The Icelander would be okay so long as Tuuri was okay, and Tuuri, though mournful, was keeping it together very well, all things considered. She had been raised with the awareness that what her cousin did was extremely dangerous and seemed well aware of the mortality rate of his profession. This may have been her first time abroad but Sigrun sensed she was no stranger to tragedy.

Of course it was Emil that worried her the most. It was the looks he had been getting about himself ever since Lalli was declared mission in action. At times he seemed so lost and hurt that Sigrun worried he’d trap himself in some vegetative state of misery. Other moments he seemed to have a furious gleam in his eyes that bordered on frenzied. Those were usually the times Emil was insisting they go out and look for Lalli on foot. 

Sigrun had the crazy image in her mind that Emil would set the entire Silent World to fire if it would bring their scout back home. She had seen other soldiers have extreme reactions to the death of a comrade before. It rarely ended well, especially when still in the field. With Emil, she just needed to make sure he kept a lid on any sort of hysterical reaction. He could be despondent and inconsolable in the tank all he wanted, just so long as he kept safe. They would make it home and then Emil could wallow in comfort and decide if military life was really for him, because Sigrun was seriously concerned at how broken up he seemed to be over just one scout, particularly one as peculiar and uncommunicative as the Finn. 

Just a little over another day left of this horrible waiting around and then they could be on their way. It had been fun while it lasted. Perhaps they could even try again in another year or two. 

Sigrun sighed and propped her feet up again, helping herself to the edge of Mikkel’s seat, and glanced at the radar. It was as dark as the night beyond the windows. The moon had been overtaken by a streak of clouds that left it dimmed and hidden. A swirl of snow was beginning to fall, glittery in the moonlight, lightly piling across the ground and into the tracks they had made getting to their new hiding spot. 

Eighteen hours down. Thirty hours to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief pause to check in with Sigrun. Emil will be back next chapter. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Emil woke and felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He knew he had, or at least assumed he had, because the night had been fraught with a myriad of bad dreams that left his nerves in tatters. They were images he could only recall in pieces now, but the fragments were enough to convey the theme: A dark forest of fear and guilt that all centered around the miserable previous day and Lalli.

Worse than the nightmares had been reality-blurring dreams born from the hope that the scout was alright. There had been one wherein Lalli simply opened the door to the tank and walked in, tired and but unharmed, Tuuri translating for him that he had gotten lost finding his way but was home now. In another, it was before Lalli had even left, but this time Emil had successfully convinced him to skip the ill-fated sojourn entirely, conveying the importance partially through Tuuri but mostly through their own shared private language of tone and gesture. Lalli had understood, and stayed home. 

Emil had woken with a start, pulse racing, half-conscious mind confused and struggling to make sense from the tangle of reality, nightmare, and wish-fulfillment. Lalli was okay. It had all just been a bad dream. No, that was wrong; Lalli really was missing. It was the dream that lied. 

Now it was morning, judging from the light that crept in under the door. Emil rubbed at his eyes, trying not to get his hopes up as he looked around the room. It still managed to be disappointing that Lalli’s nook beneath Tuuri’s bunk was empty. Everyone else’s beds were empty, Emil realized, smoothing his unruly hair out of his face. He had been left alone in the sleeping quarters, probably on Sigrun's orders to not disturb him.

The thought crept in before he could block it. _He could still have come back; he could just be outside in decontaminate._

No, Emil thought. He was really reaching now. Lalli coming home would put the whole tank in a riot. The silence he heard was a damning one. There was no news, no overnight miracles. Emil stared at his feet for a minute before rummaging around for some clean clothes. His eyes stung, his body felt achy. For the second morning in a row, he was finding it hard to get motivated to start the day, though the reasons were vastly different. Was it really only yesterday he had been lying here, lamenting their long working hours? As if that had been something even remotely worth fretting over. 

He slowly dressed in his personal clothes, no uniform today as there was no mission, and hesitantly approached the mirror fixed to the far wall. Emil and his expression regarded each other. Neither seemed very impressed with the sight. His eyes were red and sunken into the bruise-colored circles that rimmed them. The blonde hair, normally so impeccable, now hung in lank streaks about his face. He didn’t take a shower yesterday, Emil realized. What a strange thing to forget to do. He’d have to take one as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing to greet Lalli like this if he made it home. 

_**If** he made it home? _

The reflection glared at Emil. What was this ‘if’ nonsense? Not ‘if.’ There was no ‘if.’ He couldn’t start letting that word creep in through the cracks. ‘If’ was surrender; it was the first admittance that he was giving up and forfeiting Lalli to Sigrun’s casualty report. 

Emil was reminded suddenly of the wretched night they buried the cats. The strange, silent Finn had lingered outside with him when the rest of the team went in to escape the rain. Standing alongside him as the cleanser considered, _really_ considered for the first time, how precarious it was out here in the desolation. The quick pivot that existed between living and dead. Emil had thought he fully comprehended the lesson back on that rainy night, but he hadn’t. He really hadn’t. 

More memories. His friend at his back as Emil made his first kill that same rainy evening, the poor dog that followed him back from the school. A clear voice from high among trees chanting a farewell to the animal on a snowy winter morning. Emil didn't understand the meaning behind the gesture, but it had eased his low spirits and guilt as he watched from below, his heavy heart lightening a little. The song, maybe even the grisly display Lalli made of the body, had a sense of reverence that had made Emil feel like they had given the animals a proper apology for not being able to do more to help. 

Lalli deserved better than for Emil to give up on him. Lalli had never abandoned _him_. Right now, Emil needed to keep his wits about him and figure out what he could do to help his friend. And the first things he could do were have a shower, get some food in his system that he won't immediately throw back up, and try to talk to Sigrun rationally. She’d be receptive if he argued the case well enough. An entire day had passed since this mess got started. Anything stirred up by Lalli’s presence would have quieted and withdrawn back into its lair. They had hours before nightfall. Recon today would carry far less risk than yesterday. Sigrun would see that too, if he just stayed calm and didn’t freak out. 

*********************************

Emil was fishing his boots out from under his bunk when the shouting started. He heard first one voice, maybe Reynir’s, then a second, definitely Sigrun’s. Their words were gibberish to him and Emil couldn’t make out what either were saying. He only registered that they were yelling and that they sounded alarmed. He abandoned the boots and went for the bedroom door. The hatch door was open, the rest of the tank deserted. Everyone must be outside. 

A rifle shot reverberated through the tank as he reached the outer door, loud enough to deaden his hearing for a few seconds. By the next shot he was already in the snow, lunging forward to place himself between Tuuri, Reynir, and the two pestilence beasts that were lurching their way out of the woods opposite their campsite. 

Emil recognized them as something that were probably once deer, perhaps stragglers from the warped herd they had encountered their first day in the area. Sigrun was taking aim for another shot through the rifle’s scope. Mikkel was frozen several meters away, looking extremely vulnerable without a weapon, the beasts intersecting his path back to the tank entrance. 

Sigrun’s aim proved to be fatal for one of the pair. The beast collapsed with a wheeze as the bullet tore through its neck. The remaining reared and trumpeted with a furious squeal. Emil could see weeping rivets of ooze that drained through rends in its patchwork hide. The bottom half of its face was decomposing away, patches of teeth visible through holes in the grimy flesh. The thing was rotting on its feet. 

“Get in the tank and close the door,” Emil ordered Tuuri and the Icelander, neither of whom were wearing masks, and Tuuri grabbed Reynir’s arm and yanked him back toward the hatch. The door slammed shut with a metal clang. Emil remained outside, useless without a weapon, but unable to bring himself to abandon the captain and Mikkel. 

The moment before Sigrun fired the third shot felt horribly drawn out. The remaining deer was nine or ten meters away, moving slowly but still advancing in a pitching, halting fashion. It shrieked again, an angry, hungry sound, and Emil could see its bones shifting beneath its emaciated form as it approached, its skin translucent like wet parchment. Mercifully, it ignored the unarmed Mikkel and fixated on the captain, nostrils flaring and teeth gnashing as it shambled toward her. Emil had charged out in his bare socks and began to shiver in the snow, but he stood patiently and waited for Sigrun to make her move. 

The gun roared and she caught the rifle’s recoil as Emil winced away from the noise. She had aimed well. The third bullet connected, not quite in its eye, but a few centimeters below, ripping through spongy bone to erupt out the back of its head in a lurid spray of brains and skull. The beast jerked upon impact and fell. Red gore stained the snow as the creature flailed, its limbs jerking about in grotesque seizure. The noises it made were surely unlike anything to ever have come from a living deer's throat. 

Sigrun approached it cautiously, taking aim with the rifle but not letting loose a fourth shot yet. Emil knew from experience that she was waiting to see if it would die on its own and allow her to forgo the cacophony another bullet would make. In the field, minimizing presence was always a priority. After a few more moments, when the limbs slowed from thrashing to twitching, she finally relaxed stance and pointed the barrel slightly downward. 

“Gross, the smell coming off this one. It’s not even worth bragging about one-shotting something so pathetic.” She spared a brief glance over her shoulder back toward the tank to check on the rest of the crew. “Everyone okay?” 

Mikkel was bending to pick up a wash barrel he had dropped, shaken by the sudden encounter, but otherwise was fine. Reynir and Tuuri had sealed the door and scurried to the pilot’s cabin where they were watching the scene from the side window with huge eyes and agape mouths. Neither had ever been so close to a live beast before. Sigrun’s eyes met Emil’s and he nodded that he was fine, though he was shivering with his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. Damn the things for not waiting until he was at least finished getting dressed to attack. The captain seemed to smile approvingly, just for a second, before launching into motion again. 

Sigrun waved to get Tuuri’s attention through the window. “Door,” she intoned loudly, then pointed at the hatch for good measure. The Finn’s head promptly vanished from sight and the door opened a moment later, Tuuri and Reynir hovering in the entrance. Reynir looked horrified at the sight outside their campsite. Tuuri looked both horrified and fascinated, clutching Reynir’s arm and pointing as she said something excitedly in Icelandic. 

Sigrun waved the rifle in Emil’s direction. “You. Get inside. Or at least get out of the snow. Mikkel will have to amputate at the ankles if you get frostbite.” 

“Sorry.” Emil slowly and gingerly picked his way back to the steps and climbed them with as much dignity as he could muster on legs that did actually feel half-frozen, now that she mentioned it. He hoped she was kidding about the amputation. Emil sat at the top of the steps and took a deep breath, trying to quiet the shivering. He didn’t know how much was nerves and how much was cold. His ears were still ringing from the gunfire; everything sounded muffled and fuzzy. 

A few moments later was a small tap at his shoulder and Emil glanced up. The Icelander held Emil’s white uniform coat out, presumably having retrieved it from their living quarters. Emil took it, mustering a smile in genuine thanks, and bundled it around his cold feet. 

At the campfire, Mikkel poured some boiling water from a pot set over the fire as Sigrun reloaded the rifle and stood some feet away with attention alert on the forest ahead of them. The second deer had ceased all movement by now. The bodies were a ghastly sight but Emil wasn’t too bothered. Awful sights had become routine over the preceding few weeks. He studied this pair, noticing the unnaturally thin forms. They looked starved. Emil felt sorry for them, as he did for all the pitiful corrupted animals they encountered, but mostly he wished they had died somewhere else out of sight. 

Mikkel carried the barrel over to the base of the steps and set it down in front of Emil. It was half-filled with water that hissed steam into the cold air. Emil stared at it blankly until Mikkel sighed and supplied him with instructions. “Jacket goes on your body. Feet go in the tub. Take your socks off. Add snow if it’s too warm.” 

The water was scalding on first try and Emil yelped, yanking the test foot out of the barrel and shoving it back into the snow to cool it down. A few handfuls of snow brought the temperature into a tolerable range, and Emil sank his feet into the hot water with a grimace. They were responding with pins and needles, but at least it was more reassuring than total numbness. 

He had mostly stopped shivering by the time Sigrun felt confident enough in their security to stand down and rejoin them. Reynir was poking at Tuuri with a finger and trying to tell her something but she shushed him, watching the captain with anticipation as she approached. 

“All right,” Sigrun said as she joined them around the tank’s entrance, slinging the rifle across her shoulder. “That’s it. This has operation has officially gone off the rails and I’m calling it in. I’ll take watch during breakfast, then we break camp. I want to be packed up and retracing our steps south by 10:00.” 

“What!” Emil tried to jump to his feet, the sudden movement and confined foot space combining to nearly make him overbalance. He hopped from the barrel and hastily took to the steps, ignoring the chill of the metal. “Sigrun, you said you’d give Lalli two days! And then you actually only gave him like a day and a half, and now he doesn’t even get _that?_ That’s not fair!” 

“I own ‘fair’ when our camp is getting ambushed in the _daytime_ by creepers, two of ‘em, and we know there’s more where those came from.” Sigrun pointed at the corpses. “We’re begging for an attack after that skirmish, and on top of that, we’ve been sitting blind for a day now.” She hesitated and glanced at Tuuri then turned to face the forest again, her posture rigid. “The scout had his chance. He didn’t make it. We’re moving out.” 

Emil felt a flash of that sick sudden feeling, the one he had been recurrently having ever since Mikkel radioed in and pronounced Lalli as formally missing. He swallowed it back, forced himself instead to take a deep breath. To think about what he was going to say before blurting it. “Sigrun, please just slow down for a second. Those things are weak, they’re not a real threat if we keep Tuuri and that guy inside. And we don’t know that there will be more of them for sure.” _Be calm. Don’t freak out_. “We’ve barely seen any trolls or beasts in the area since we got here.” 

“That’s right.” She faced him again, her expression hard. “So think about that for a second. We’re outside a city. It’s small but there’s plenty of places to hide, and we’ve been plundering it for three days now.” 

She strode around to the back of the tank to their storage area, her diatribe continuing over the sound of the supply storage hatch being opened. “This place should be crawling with nasties, we should be having to beat them back from our front door, yet we haven’t seen more than a few puny hives and some wimpy elk. There’s something off with this whole place.” Sigrun reappeared with an armful of rifles. She leaned a couple against the side of the tank and handed another to Mikkel, speaking to him directly. “Breakfast and then we break camp. I’m going to take some food and go stand guard on the other side. Yell if anything so much as coughs at you from the trees.” 

“Yes,” Mikkel agreed. He accepted the gun gravely and propped it against a chair near the campfire. Sigrun moved to rummage for a bowl and spoon from a bin of utensils. 

Emil could have screamed in frustration. He whipped around to Tuuri, gesturing in helpless exasperation toward Sigrun. “Tell her, Tuuri! We can’t leave yet, not until we find Lalli!” 

But rather than provide Emil with the solidarity he was hoping for, Tuuri stared at her feet and refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t know, Emil,” she said in a small voice. “It’s been over a day. I can’t remember anyone ever…like this…after a whole day. The captain’s right. There wasn’t a very good chance to begin with.” 

“Of course I’m right,” Sigrun grumbled by the fire, hovering near Mikkel as he stirred whatever was cooking in the pot. “We don’t have any more time for lost causes. Not if I’m to get the rest of you back alive.” 

Emil looked from Tuuri to Sigrun to Mikkel, a new and ugly thought occurring to him. “None of you ever really thought he was going to make it back.” There was a fresh cut in the awareness that he had been standing alone in his optimism, that no one had shared in his faith that Lalli could in fact beat the odds and make it back to them. “Was all this just to humor me? Am I really the only one that cares enough to even hope?” 

“It’s not that we don’t hope, too,” Tuuri answered in that same sad tone, and part of him wanted to curl in a ball and die at how his words were probably hurting her, because of course she also cared about Lalli, he didn’t have a monopoly on that. “It’s just that we have to be realistic about things too. That doesn’t make it any less awful, though. Oh, how am I ever going to tell Onni?” She asked with a tremulous sigh, sounding downright wretched. “He’ll never stop crying.” 

“I’ll help you.” Mikkel brought a bowl of the porridge to Tuuri. “We’ll tell him together, when you’re ready.” 

Tuuri nodded, sniffing. She looked over at the deer carcasses, heaped in the snow a stone’s throw from their front door. “I think I’ll eat in the office,” she said, accepting the bowl without taking her mask off. 

Any control Emil had over the situation was quickly slipping away, and Lalli’s life was going with it. “I can’t believe you all can just go about having breakfast and agreeing to leave Lalli for dead. Like it’s not a big deal.” 

“Emil,” Tuuri snapped, an edge to her own voice now. “It’s bad enough without everyone fighting. Let’s just do as Sigrun says.” 

“Back off and leave her alone.” Sigrun pointed her spoon at Emil. “I get that you’re upset, but you’re going to keep it together or I’m going to lock you in the supply room until you’re able to be less of a jerk. No one here is relishing the current situation."

Emil’s eyes felt hot and watery. He glared up at the sky, blinking furiously, his jaw clenched as he fought to get his composure back. This was even worse than throwing up in front of everyone yesterday had been. He wouldn’t have thought it possible that something could be more humiliating, yet here he was. 

Then the Icelander said something, loudly from where he stood hovering in the entrance, and in a tone that even Emil could identify as exasperated. 

Mikkel turned to look at him as Tuuri demanded something sharply from the office. 

Sigrun’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?” She asked Mikkel. 

Mikkel paused before answering, and when he did, his tone was carefully neutral. “He says, he knows Lalli is still alive.” 

No one immediately spoke. Sigrun pinned Reynir with her gaze and he seemed to shrink a little, clearly uncomfortable under that level of scrutiny. But Reynir didn’t retract his statement, and he finally met her eyes with a stubborn jut of his chin. Emil realized he was holding his breath, expecting this sudden break in the clouds to be snuffed out, but hoping against hope that it somehow endure, that Reynir be able to back up this outlandish claim with something that would convince the captain. 

Then Sigrun said, “Someone ask him what he means by that.” 

*********************************

After hearing Reynir out, Sigrun called a recess, demanding that the group eat breakfast and break camp, just as she had originally ordered. She told Emil to take a shower and eat something, a command he was relieved to carry out despite the nervous flutter in his chest. Now he sat in the chair next to the radio, hair still wet about his face but otherwise tidied up. Reynir and Tuuri were in the pilot’s den as Sigrun sat on the desk opposite Emil, the open window to her right kept in peripheral view where she could keep an eye on the forest. Mikkel stood patiently next to her, arms crossed. All their gear had been packed away. Tuuri was in the driver’s seat. Emil was very aware that Sigrun could issue the order to drive off at any moment. 

“To start this discussion off, I want everyone to remember that this may change nothing.” Sigrun gave Emil a deliberate stare, pausing until he nodded his compliance before continuing on. “I don’t trust this city. I also don’t know that I buy it that braidy here is a mage. Can _you_ back up any of this stuff he’s saying?” This directed at Tuuri. 

“Um…” Tuuri looked reluctant. “I’m not a mage myself, so I can’t say for sure. But what he’s describing seems to match up with what I know from Onni and Lalli.” She looked at Reynir, who smiled encouragingly at her. She returned it half-heartedly, seemingly conflicted in the face of Reynr’s insistence and Sigrun’s skepticism. “I think he might be telling the truth.” 

“Ask him to tell me again what he saw.” 

Tuuri relayed Sigrun’s request to Reynir. He spoke for several moments in Icelandic, his brow furrowing as he seemed to be struggling to articulate his answer. 

“He says he’s familiar with Lalli’s mage-space. He’s met both Lalli and Onni—my brother—that way, in the common place that mages go, and he’s always able to find them across the dark waters.” Tuuri seemed embarrassed to be repeating some of this, for which Emil did not blame her. “He says Lalli’s space is still where it always is, it’s just…um, hang on a moment, please.” She paused and asked Reynir for clarification, then continued, “It’s just not very solid right now. It feels weak, but it’s still there.” She looked around at the group, flushing a little under the collective scrutiny. “He thinks it means Lalli is still alive.” 

“Really? Because assuming all of that is true, it still doesn’t sound all that promising to me.” Sigrun turned to regard Mikkel, rapping her fingernails against the desk surface in thought. “You’ve worked with Icelandic mages?” 

No,” he admitted. “But I always heard they were renowned for the accuracy of their visions, especially where the Silent World was concerned. If you can believe it.” 

“Yeah,” Sigrun answered. “They pretty much are, in my experience. Don't know much about the Finnish ones, though. Hmph.” She regarded Mikkel’s impassive face for a moment before looking back to Tuuri. “I still don’t get why this should make me think the little scout guy is alive. Sounds like he could just as easily be dead or dying.” 

More exchanges in Icelandic, then Tuuri responded with a pained expression, “He says it still feels warm, like a living place. Like there’s a soul holding it together. He also says he’s very very sorry and this is new to him and he’s not sure how to properly explain any of it.” She sighed and said something to Reynir in Icelandic that made him rub the back of his head with a sheepish grin. 

Emil had never been one to take the mage stuff seriously. Even with Tuuri and Sigrun backing up the claim about Lalli and his kind, Emil couldn’t really fathom that his friend had supernatural powers. It was even more outlandish that the Icelandic stowaway be similarly otherworldly gifted. Just right now though, he was willing to buy into whatever he needed, no matter how bizarre, because Reynir was saying that Lalli was still alive and Emil needed the ally. 

Emil opened his mouth to speak only to be cut off immediately by Sigrun. “Before you get all worked up,” she said, “You need to think about something that I’m pretty you’ve been overlooking in all of this, and that’s their safety.” Sigrun hooked a thumb toward Reynir and Tuuri. “If you and I run off into that city and we get killed, _which I would like to stress to you Emil is a very likely outcome if we run into that city,_ it leaves these three in a very bad position. The non-combatants in the crew depend on us. One of them is your pal’s family. Do you think he would want her stranded out here in the middle of rash city, no fighting line for defense? If we go down, we take them with us. Probably.” 

“I…um.” Emil was embarrassed. He could feel his face flush slightly. Sigrun was spot on in her assessment. He hadn’t spared a thought to consider anyone else’s safety. “I didn’t think of that,” he admitted. 

“I’ve been circling it and I still think it’s a bad draw, especially because this one just convinced me that even if the scout is still alive, he’s probably messed up. That makes retrieval even more difficult.” Sigrun frowned down at her wool sweater and scratched at one arm. She seemed aggravated, and—Emil hoped—regretful. “Maybe if we weren’t so far out from the port. Or if we had another fighter. But we don’t; we’ve only got the two of us and a mechanic, a farmer, and a civilian. Totally useless. No offense.” She shot this last at Reynir, who smiled back, clearly not understanding the specifics of what the captain had just said about him. 

Emil realized he had only one final bargaining chip to offer in ante for Lalli’s life. One last hand to play. “Let me go look for him alone." 

“Oh, sure.” Sigrun scoffed, immediately scornful. “That’s the stupidest idea yet. Like you’d last an hour out there by yourself. Be serious.” 

“I am,” Emil insisted. “I know it’s a long shot, but it’s the only thing we can do. Let me go and look for him. You stay back here with everyone else. They’ll be fine if they have you and Mikkel.” 

“I don’t care, I’m still not letting you dart off to get yourself killed for troll food. A thirty-percent casualty rate of the crew would look delightful on my professional record. Pass.” 

“Mark me as having disobeyed your orders, then. If I don’t come back, I won’t care what you say about me to get out of trouble. Come on, Sigrun. Just give me until night.” She didn’t want to abandon Lalli either. Emil knew she didn’t. There had to be a way through to her and get her on his side. “It’s not a fight I want to back down from.” 

“You really want to run off and get killed looking for someone else that you only _think_ hasn’t also already been killed? That’s how you want to spend your day? Because I can’t stress to you enough how much I think you’re gonna get outright decimated on your own.” 

“I won’t if you help me and tell me what to do. And even if I do get killed, so what. At least it’d happen trying to a friend.” And it wouldn’t be living this rest of his life under the shadow of knowing he had abandoned one of the few he had when he needed Emil. The prospect of that was too horrible to abide. “I can’t leave without at least trying, no matter what ends up happening.” 

Sigrun gave him a long appraising look. Then she looked at Mikkel, who didn’t comment or break the usual stonewall reaction. Emil wondered what she was waiting for. Dissent to Emil’s idea, probably. But Mikkel didn’t say anything, either in support or contest. 

"Come on," she finally asked him, nudging at the Dane, with a foot from her perch on the desk. "You don't have any opinions on the matter? You've always got _something_ you wanna say, so say it." 

Mikkel shrugged. "I agree with you. There are very poor chances that anything good would come from this. I also get the impression that Emil is willing to undertake this foolhardy endeavor with or without your consent, so it seems reasonable to assist him as much as possible." 

Now it was her turn to fall silent. Tuuri was translating quietly everything to Reynir, who looked even more anxious than Emil felt. The clock on the console indicated that it was almost 10:00, Sigrun's deadline for wanting to clear the area. 

“This is really the best idea we can come up with?” Sigrun finally sighed. “This is a really terrible plan. Someone, hand me the map of this dump. We have to see if we can improve the terrible plan from ‘suicidal’ to only ‘bloody stupid’ before we grant Emil’s wish to die.” She hopped off the desk suddenly, face breaking into a grin. “This is _such_ a dumb idea, but damn if you don’t have some guts, kid. Convince me there’s even the slightest chance you can walk back alive without bringing the city down on our heads, and maybe I’ll allow it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Only seven precious hours until sunset yet Sigrun was still insistent they devote as much time as required to shore up a plan she felt comfortable with. For once even Emil pulled rein on the hotheadedness. He complied with her command to help Mikkel source equipment in the supply room in a surprisingly docile fashion. She had been expecting him to insist on rushing off without any forethought at all and was taken aback at how calmly he was conducting himself instead. 

Sigrun herself remained up front with Tuuri to review the map of the area. It was spread out over the dash where light was best, four books and one kitten helping keep the edges from furling back upon themselves as the Skald sat and Sigrun loomed. Motes of dust wafted in the wan sunbeams that streamed in through the tank's foggy windows. Notes inked in Tuuri’s neat handwriting already ruled out a good deal of city, narrowing their search to only those few places still mostly blank of annotations.

It was really more a town than a proper city, only about 150 square kilometers in size including a river intersecting the northern tip, but densely populated enough to be fruitful for salvage. It was a compact area. Sigrun had been having them camp at the south border ever since their arrival, not trusting any of the small city parks on the map to be adequate nighttime shelter. 

She glowered down at the map now, eyes narrowed at it in challenge. There wasn’t a lot of real estate left unexplored, and her gaze kept returning to two spots in particular: An area of about four kilometers near the northern center of the city and a long linear stretch further to the east that passed several major sites of note and reached the edge of the river. Both had been relayed by HQ as places of interest and were still in need of recon, giving them strong potential as Lalli’s potential route two nights earlier. 

“What do you think of these?” Sigrun asked Tuuri, indicating the routes with a finger. 

“Could be,” She agreed. Sigrun watched her gaze trace along first the path toward the river, then linger on the dense cluster of marked targets in the upper center. “I think we can rule out most of the east part over here since there aren’t a lot of salvage locations. And you’ve already looked at most sites on the western side, at least south of the river, so I don’t think he’d have gone back that way.” She looked up at Sigrun. “Yep. These are the most likely places Lalli went, I’d say.” 

Two places was more than Sigrun wanted to give Emil. “We need to narrow it down to just one. That idiot will try to run around looking everywhere we tell him. I want him covering as little ground as possible.” 

The area in the center of the map appeared to be the site of a school or library, with one big circle and several smaller ones that indicated potential salvage points. It was located in one of the densest areas of the small city. To the right, the path to the river, a longer stretch of distance to cover but more removed from the heart of the urban sprawl. 

“This one." Sigrun was resolute as she traced a finger along the long eastern trail. “We’re telling him this is where we think he went.” 

“Why that one?” 

“Because it’s the less crappy option. Unless that mute cousin of yours mentioned anything about where he was going, which I’m guessing he did not, best we can do is guess anyway. Emil marching off into the heart of this hick place will definitely get him killed. We’re sending him the other way.” Sigrun stood and turned to leave the cabin, lingering in the door frame. “I’m going out back to see how inventory is going. Start looking at possible places we can relocate to for the night, ideally far enough to keep us out of range if the whole place goes ballistic. If the radio sings, don’t answer. Just come get me.”

“Okay,” Tuuri answered. Her voice wavered only slightly. It was actually a very mild reaction considering the circumstances; Sigrun was impressed with the girl’s nerves. Tuuri would have been a good warrior, were she only born immune. What a shame. 

Despite Sigrun’s appreciation for Tuuri’s resolve, she paused on the way out the hatch door to duck her head into the sleeping room, where the Icelandic kid sat on the bed looking at his feet and nervously twining his fingers through his long braid. Sigrun had ordered him out of the way while they ironed out the mission plans, decreeing there to be no place underfoot for dead weight. In retrospect, it was perhaps more harsh than it entirely needed to be. Reynir had slunk away like a scolded pet off to the barracks and proceeded to practice being invisible. 

“Turns out I have a job for you after all,” she told him, hovering in the doorway. “Go cheer up Tuuri.” She nodded toward the pilot area while the kid stared wide-eyed at her. Sigrun didn’t stick around to see if he understood her. Usually she and Reynir needed Mikkel or Tuuri around translating to a decent conversation but she assumed he’d get the gist this time even without the assistance. 

Truthfully, there was something cathartic in bullying the Icelander. It had been his words that sparked this latest folly. Sigrun had finally relented in the face of Emil’s bloody bull-headedness but she still didn’t feel much better about the idea. Sure, she was glad that they were finally taking some action, was perhaps even a microscopic bit hopeful that they really could recover the scout, but everything was overshadowed by worry. She felt anxious, and in Sigrun, anxiety got alchemized into aggression. But taking it out on the kid would only further stress the crew, and things were strained enough already. 

It would feel great to have an appropriate target for the frustration. She would almost welcome more of the rancid deer to shoot at for some relaxation. Or maybe she could shoot Emil just a little to get this idea out of his head. Knowing the Swede, a bullet still wouldn’t be enough to do it. It was so annoying. Emil still occasionally balked at exploring empty closets on his own during salvage, but throw the scout into the mix, and suddenly no amount of good sense or poor odds could deter him. 

Sigrun had reluctantly concluded that at this juncture, only death or coma was going to dissuade Emil from trying to find the lost scout. Even if it meant being branded a mutineer. Even if it meant going into the city alone, one that seemed to lack teeth and yet had somehow swallowed up one their own. And damn if that sentiment didn’t sting her, too; sitting out on a mission to save one of her own crew, letting a green rookie go alone in her stead. The cowardly feel of it galled her. But she couldn’t condemn the others to death just for one soldier’s sake, and loss of both the scout and the captain would leave the crew dismally bereft of defenses. 

The captain sighed inwardly as she wound her way to the back of the tank. Sigrun loved leading a team but was finding this responsibility, the sitting in judgement of lives as indispensable or expendable, to be one that weighed heavily. But she couldn’t dwell on worthless things like feelings right now. Equipment and a crash course in infiltration. A safe shelter for the night. Some sort of plan that gave Emil at least a marginal chance of coming back alive. These were the priorities. There would always be time enough for regret later, assuming one lived long enough for it. 

She was brought to a halt by a sight of disarray upon rounding the corner. Several open crates were pulled from their orderly rows and strewn about the supply hatch. Various weapons, rations, and miscellaneous objects littered the floor around them in chaotic fashion. It was a far cry from Mikkel’s usual immaculate standards and Sigrun paused to stare at it for a moment in bemused fascination. The Dane was searching through a small crate that Sigrun recognized as medical supplies. Emil was standing nearby with an olive-green canvas backpack, pale but otherwise calm, though Sigrun noticed he seemed intent on avoiding her gaze. 

“I know you know he’s going on one afternoon’s recon and not a year’s worth of camping,” she addressed to Mikkel dryly, stepping into the hatch and picking her way around an open crate of ammunition. “He doesn’t need loaded down with an armory and half the rations.” 

“I promise, the rations are only enough for two people for a day, should Emil find Lalli.” Mikkel carefully pulled out medical supplies, sorting them in neat piles around him. Gauze. Tape. Empty syringes and small clear vials and pills that Sigrun didn’t recognize. “Besides, in the outcome that we backtrack to the port, we’ll leave most of these supplies behind after evacuation anyway.” 

“Fine,” she said. “But those med supplies you’re so generously gifting him with now is probably the most valuable asset we’ve got, vulnerable as we are without a scout. I don’t want it completely squandered.” 

“Emil, what do you know about first aid?” Mikkel asked as he handed the packed field kit to him. 

“Um, not much more than we covered in basic training. I’ve never tried to do it for real.” 

Sigrun rolled her eyes. “Be sure to at least him explain to him what to even do with this stuff, Mikkel. Otherwise he’ll just waste it to all of our detriment.” 

“I will. I’ll have Tuuri write some basic instructions down that he can refer back to as well.” 

The captain watched Emil silently for a few more moments. He had averted his face at her last words and his eyes were hidden behind blonde bangs, but Sigrun could well envision the pouty, stubborn expression that probably camped there. His cheeks would be flushed and his jaw set, feelings hurt but refusing to back down. Finally she spoke to him directly. “I would still call off this mission if I thought you’d actually obey. I’m certain you wouldn’t, though. Probably just rush off on your own without any gear or idea of where to go.” 

Emil didn’t reply. He held the backpack open as Mikkel began to load it from the supplies scattered around them. The big man was being very careful to stay neutral but his silence alone was enough to indicate his tacit support for Emil. 

Sigrun wasn’t one to be daunted even when outnumbered. “Emil, you are not a scout. You are not a medic. You have no experience in battlefield retrieval. We can tell you where to go and give you all this equipment, but do you have any idea what to do?” _Are you ready to go out there alone? Am I sending you out to die, too?_

He was just a kid. But Lalli had been just a kid too, and for months she had held no second thoughts about sending him out on his own each night. 

“Come on, Sigrun, cut me some slack. I’m going to try my best.” Emil finally turned to her, and she was surprised to see he was smiling. 

The effect was immediately disarming. Everyone had been so down lately. Sigrun couldn’t recall seeing anyone smile since the previous morning. Certainly not Emil. She wasn’t thrilled about the situation at hand herself, but the dismal tone had really started to wear at her. Her own bad mood couldn’t quite hold together in this sudden break in tension and she felt the frustration loosen, just a little. 

“You keep trying to talk me out of it, but you’re the only reason I’m able to even attempt it anyway,” he continued, shifting the weight of the bag in his arms around as Mikkel fastened a canteen to a clip on its side. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how to be gutsy enough to even try.” He sighed when Mikkel, finished with the canteen, began to add ammunition to the load. “I’d have just given up. And then I’d have had to live with that forever.” 

Sigrun smiled herself, more of the edginess relaxing with it. “That’s because I’m an awesome teacher, of course.” She watched as Emil, this green kid, this total spoiled rookie from the fancy side of town, geared up to stage a rescue mission for a lost teammate. On his own, under high risk of danger. "And my standards are very high – no one but the bravest of the brave is good enough to serve as my right hand warrior. I just hope this fool’s errand is worth his life.” 

“It is,” Emil replied. He braced the bag beneath both hands as Mikkel began to fasten the top. “I can’t leave here without at least trying to bring him back. But I wouldn't have been able to if you hadn't backed me up, so thank you.” 

“Alright, that’s everything. Test the weight.” Mikkel instructed Emil, stepping back and regarding their handiwork. 

Emil hoisted it onto his shoulders. The straps seemed to dig into his shoulders and he shifted it around. “A bit heavy but I think it’s okay,” he said. 

“But is it light enough to walk around in all day?” Sigrun raised a hand and cut off Mikkel before the Dane could interrupt. “Could you run with it if you had to? Mikkel, you’ve over-packed. I’m telling you, he doesn’t need to take that much artillery with him. Take some of it out.” 

Mikkel accepted the pack and began to sort through it again. “I only packed three boxes of shells,” he said doubtfully. “I had considered four.” 

Sigrun sighed loudly. “Gods, Mikkel, stop fretting over him. Four boxes? Is he facing a horde? You don’t have to arm him to the teeth. He needs to be able to move quickly while carrying this around.” The ammunition was heavy for its size and if Emil needed that much, he’d be overrun anyway. She watched as Mikkel removed one of the ammo boxes and some of the flare gun charges before returning the pack to Emil. 

“Better?” She asked as he tried it on again. 

“Yes. This, my bandolier, my flamethrower, my rifle, and my knife, right?” He asked. “That sounds okay.” 

“That’s right. So let’s review weapon use for a minute.” Sigrun leaned against the edge of a crate with Emil as Mikkel began putting away the rest of the supplies. Settling into a captain's briefing calmed her nerves. It was an easy, familiar role to slip into, one that helped her face their current predicament from a practical angle. “Use the knife when you safely can as a first choice, obviously, but don’t worry about making noise if it means your life. Be smart, but do what you have to do to stay alive. Your own survival comes first, prioritize it before anything else. Get me?” 

“Yeah, I get you,” Emil answered, and Sigrun bopped him on the shoulder. 

“Make sure you remember it.” She straightened up from her slouch against the boxes. “Finish cleaning up this wretched mess you made, and then Emil, get changed into your uniform and meet me up in the cabin. We’ve found your route.” 

“Really?” He nearly dropped the backpack. “You know where he went?” 

“I have as good a guess as any we’re can make.” She made her way toward the exit. “We’ll iron out the details up front. And Mikkel? Don’t forgot to teach him something useful about all the first aid stuff you gave him.” 

**********************************************

Tuuri guided the tank back to the familiar campsite of the previous day as Sigrun and Emil aligned on the plan in the office. They discussed what was to be communicated back to Headquarters, particularly to Emil’s aunt and uncle. Emil wanted Sigrun to declare him AWOL. It would save her the most face if she were able to distance herself from his actions, as reckless as the mission was. In the end, she got her way, telling him that she would only give the Vasterstroms the truth: That as captain, she had approved Emil’s request for search and recovery of a fellow solider missing in action despite full knowledge of the risk. Honor his bravery and mourn his stupidity. 

Everything else was just numbers. The number of hours until the sun went down. The minutes required to drive to that night’s shelter. The kilometers Emil thought he could travel in the time he had. The distance he’d be able to reasonably search. 

Sigrun reviewed all this and the map with him, grilling Emil on tactical details and landmarks until she was confident he’d committed everything memory. She hadn’t anticipated him to be such a focused student—Mikkel had on numerous occasions gravely hinted at a dubious opinion of Emil’s education—yet he applied himself with diligence to the lessons that seemed even to impress the Dane. 

The tank was parked outside the city’s border by the time Sigrun ran out of legitimate reasons to delay him. Emil was properly equipped. He knew sufficient details of the route to have a backup plan if the first path became compromised, and how much distance he could cross in the time he had. He had even memorized the proper signal flare code to communicate back to the tank should he find Lalli or get into trouble himself. Daylight would only continue to dwindle. He was as ready as he was going to be, so Sigrun finally, reluctantly walked him toward the hatch door to see him off. 

Mikkel tapped his shoulder they went by, solemnly offering his hand for a shake. Tuuri flung herself at him for a hug and after a moment Reynir did too, the two of them crushing Emil in a grip that he sheepishly returned after a few moments’ bewildered embarrassment. Sigrun finally had to shoo the two of them away, and then it was just her and Emil alone at the open door, one final detail left to review. 

“Tuuri thinks tonight’s shelter is a half-hour drive away.” Sigrun said, her voice calm but intense, staring out away from Emil and scanning the city ruins just beyond them. It was all small houses and stoplights here on the outskirts, surrounded by unbroken snow beneath a dreary grey sky. 

_Still as the grave,_ she thought. _Just like always._ It made her hackles rise, this misleading peace, instinct reminding her again that they really should just leave. “We’ll stake out somewhere nearby for the rest of the day. At 16:00 we strike west for the campsite. We won’t be back this way again.” She pulled her gaze away from the ruins long enough to spare him a serious look. “That’s the hard stop, Emil. You need to get back here by 16:00, otherwise you get left behind.” 

“You really think I have a chance of making it back here? You didn’t even think Lalli could do it.” 

Sigrun seized opportunity immediately. “Having second thoughts? Then don’t go.” 

He shook his head. “I’m not backing out. It’s just weird to think that everyone may already be looking at me like I’m troll food before I’ve even left.” 

“Woah, what kind of nonsense is that?” Sigrun poked at him, alarmed that he would dwell on such a thing. Battles were first won in the mind before on the field. “No one is thinking that. And besides, it doesn’t matter what they think because I’ve got confidence in you, even if I don't have it in Lalli.” 

“Really?” 

“Really,” She said, and meant it. "Look, I’ll be level with you – you know I’m super worried about sending you out there alone. I don't trust this place. But you’re capable of doing this. You’ve done solo salvage in houses before. This is just a longer version of that. If you stay sharp and luck goes your way, you have a chance. But you have to be willing to do whatever you need to do to meet us back here by 16:00. That means knowing when to call off the search. Will you be able to do that?” she asked, pointed. 

"Yes," Emil said. "I will." 

"If you mean it, then yeah. I think you've got a chance." She didn't clarify that it was far less of one where Lalli was concerned. Emil surely knew anyway. But he had heart and guts, even if he didn't have experience and wisdom, and Sigrun had seen both go a long way on the battlefield when a cause otherwise seemed lost. "Get back here on time and prove me right." 

“Okay. I appreciate that.” Emil smiled. “I’ll do my best.” He took a deep breath of the chill winter air and exhaled slowly, his breath frosting like smoke he did. 

Outside the doorway, the sun was steadily creeping higher in the sky. A few birds perched in the surrounding trees, cawing to one another in raucous tones. Not a hint of movement came from the city. To all appearances, it was a place entirely drained of life. They stood shoulder to shoulder, just watching the streets and listening to the crow calls. Then Emil at last broke the silence. 

“Time to go.” He cradled one end of the flamethrower in the crook of his elbow and held out a fist. “Wish me luck?” 

She rapped her knuckles against his. “The best luck.” 

He left, skipping any sort of formal goodbye, a mercy for which Sigrun was grateful. From the doorway she watched until he disappeared from view and then some before finally calling ahead to Tuuri that it was time to move out. 

**********************************************

The clever little Skald found a great hill to camp on in the neighboring forest some kilometers away in the south, too exposed for nighttime use but perfect for a view of the sky above the city in case of signal flare. Sigrun posted up outside the tank in a chair, rifle held languidly in her hands as she stared at the line of buildings visible in the near distance, an ear cocked for gunfire, intent on catching any possible clue as to how Emil was faring. At some point Mikkel brought her something to eat and Tuuri came to consult her on when they should return to the rendezvous point. 

Time crept while her mind raced along all sorts of paths. She consoled herself that they had seen very little troll activity in the city, which would be good for Emil. She considered that there was very little troll activity, yet Lalli, an experienced scout of talent, had gone missing. At times she was close to ordering Tuuri to head back to the city to track Emil down. In the end, she only watched and allowed the afternoon to pass without event. When the appointed hour to meet Emil drew close, they broke camp and headed to the outskirts again. 

The city loomed ominous as they approached, awash in its own cast of late afternoon shadow. They arrived at rendezvous point well in advance of the meeting time and settled in to wait for Emil. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patience! This chapter took way too long to get done considering it's just everyone standing around talking.
> 
> I know I say it every time, but something about this chapter definitely bugs me so it may see some dialogue edits at some point. For now I want to stop spinning wheels with it and just carry on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A warning** : Emphasis on the horror and gore tags in this chapter.

Emil strode through the center of the road with the flamethrower braced tight in his grip and a finger on the trigger. There were only a few inches of powder snow on the street but it crunched loudly as he passed over it. From his backpack came the slight shift of supplies and faint metallic clink of ammunition rattling within boxes. His breath panted slightly from between clenched teeth and frosted on the cold winter air in brief crystalline bursts.

Everywhere else around him, it was quiet. The hushed whispering ambiance from wind and tree underscored a deeper engulfing silence that made Emil incredibly paranoid about the amount of noise he was making. It felt like he splashing about in a still pond. Every predator in the water would know where he is. 

He was three kilometers into city limits and the glut was beginning to coagulate around him, taking shape from a sparse population of rusted fueling stations and standalone structures into a denser stream of buildings that flanked him on both sides. Emil stared at them as he passed by, gaze flickering from left to right and occasionally over his shoulder. It was just the sort of territory Rash-life favored: Well-insulated and full of vantage spots for stalking prey. 

His current location had once been a residential district, a well-off one. Many of the sturdy wooden homes were still in passable condition despite the decades of abandon. Vehicles and yard furnishings gathered snow out front. House numbers not yet entirely lost to rust and cobweb could still be made out from Emil’s spot in the middle of the road. He passed one such residence, his eyes tracing the four brass numbers, mostly dull but with some final gasp of luster still glinting from beneath layers of tarnish. It could almost have been an older neighborhood outside Stockholm, if not for the overgrown lawns and the uniformly dark windows in every single home. 

Emil’s throat felt raspy and the backpack was starting to weigh on his shoulders but he didn’t want to stop here for a break. He elbowed the pack to shift its weight more comfortably and continued forward, steps loudly audible in the fresh snow. 

Over Emil’s head, clouds hastened along an overcast sky, a churning mélange of blue and grey skittering along a rapid current. Streetlights began to replace stop signs the further he travelled. They arched far overhead and dripped with menacing stalactites that seemed opaque in the wan afternoon sun. Mikkel had told him once that that these lights had all been electric, even in puny towns like this one. Emil eyed them as he passed beneath, wondering how many years they had kept working on their automatic timers after the city was claimed by the plague. 

Another half-kilometer in and Emil came across the jagged remains of a vicious accident strewn through the street. From the wreckage it appeared at least three vehicles had been involved, though it was hard to be certain from the warped, snow-covered remains. Shrapnel and metal jutted dangerously in a wide arch outward from the impact site. Emil hesitated, surveying the visible hazards and imagining unseen ones beneath the snow. After a few moment’s indecision, he circumvented the whole area, moving for the first time out of the street and onto the sidewalk. 

Skittish of his proximity to the buildings, Emil slowed as he passed a former shop of some kind to look inside. The glass windows were filmy. He had to stare past his own reflection to make out anything of the building’s interior, which ultimately amounted to a collection of molding, ugly office furniture, some pieces upright, most toppled over. 

The next building over had the same size windows but these were shattered wide, and even in quick passing Emil caught sight of the rust-colored splotches that stained the filthy beige carpet and splattered low across the molding walls. He retreated from the sidewalk and returned to the street, reasonably confident the buildings were vacant but wanting away from them all the same. 

After the car accident came a large street intersection, one of the major ones in the city as he recalled from the map. The volume of converging roads pushed the buildings back a more comforting distance away, and here Emil paused to unhook the canteen from the backpack for a drink and smooth the wind-tossed bangs out of his eyes. He didn’t like having to relinquish his grip on the flamethrower. He laid it carefully at his feet, gulping back some water quickly while continuing to watch the sidewalk for any signs of movement in his peripheral vision. 

His destination was the city park. About seven kilometers into the city, it was a haven in the middle of the urban maze, at least two square kilometers, and Emil’s best hope for finding Lalli. He had pointed it out to Tuuri and asked if it were not the likeliest place for the scout to seek refuge if hurt or stranded, and she had agreed. The infected population in the city would prefer the insulation of the buildings over the open exposure of the forest to make winter nests. Plus, Emil had the impression that Lalli’s weird affinity for nature would lead him to the closest thing to a forest the city had. When he tried to picture Lalli trapped in the city, it always returned to imagining the scout among the trees. 

Emil’s current street was one of the biggest ones in the area, running to the park and continuing slightly west before turning north once more, intersecting a series of railroad tracks, and ultimately dead-ending into a river. The whole length, border to river, was about fifteen kilometers, a three-hour walk each way. He didn’t have time enough for that, but he could reach the park itself. 

A sudden nearby _bang!_ made him start and he dropped the canteen. Emil was hoisting up the flamethrower by the time he heard it again a few heartbeats later. It was coming from somewhere very close. He scanned around, weapon readied, finally spotting the source: An open shop door disconnected from its top hinge, laying at a strange angle in its frame. It clattered again as he watched, the wind bumping it into the wall behind. Harmless, yet he stood with the weapon aimed for several moments, only lowering the weapon when his heart finally crawled back down his throat. 

Emil’s hands shook a little when he reached for the dropped canteen and fastened it back onto the pack. His face felt flushed and hot, even in the cold air. Standing still gave him the opportunity to notice how loudly his pulse was beating in his ears. It could surely be heard for miles. 

He stared at the myriad of snowy paths that branched away from the intersection, gaze seeking any indication of life on the ground or within the ruins. Trees rippled gently, whispered softly, the only movement within sight. Unbroken snow piled in drifts against wooden walls and stretched out in all directions save for the one marred by Emil’s own steps. 

The captain had told him to watch the snow closely. 

_It’ll be the best hope for tracking the scout down and your best defense,_ she had said as they drove back toward the city perimeter. Sigrun had attempted to stuff many lessons into his head as she could before letting him leave, but this was one she had made clear was of prominent importance, forcing him to repeat it back to her several times. 

The memory of the captain’s calm, authoritative instruction helped calm his haywire nerves, and Emil summoned to mind the rest of the lesson, feeling himself steadied. _Even with the fresh powder you may see his footprints, or see any troll activity that’s been happening in the open. Keep a sharp look on it, especially around buildings, and make a wide berth if you spot any tracks that aren’t human._

Unfortunately, thinking of the captain also reminded Emil once again of how badly he wished Sigrun was here with him now. He would even welcome Mikkel as backup, if only it meant he didn’t have to continue on alone. 

But he didn’t have Sigrun or Mikkel. And Lalli had been on his own for over a day now. 

Emil set out north at a brisk clip. The sun overhead had become stifled as clouds increasingly piled up and the entire street was seeped in a grey pallor. A few tall apartments began to creep closer, blotting out great swatches of the sky in black silhouette. 

The apartments probably weren’t even ten stories high but from Emil’s vantage below they seemed to reach the clouds. They loomed overhead, dark monoliths of a past era, and Emil imagined eyes staring down at him from every shadowy window high above. He had once raided an apartment like this with Sigrun and Lalli some weeks prior. Tried to raid, at least. After stumbling out the staircase onto a floor entirely clotted wall to wall and even across the ceiling with vile, infectious masses, Sigrun had called an immediate retreat and Emil had been left with claustrophobic nightmares for a week. 

He could feel resolve he was desperately trying to maintain start to suffer some fractures. Emil wanted to sprint past the apartments before they could close in on him and bury him. Or even better, fire one of the white signal flares back to the tank for extraction. Tuuri would be close enough that they could probably pick him up within a few minutes, if he left the weapons behind and ran for the border as fast as he could. 

Instead, Emil took a slow breath and ignored the faintly nauseating sense of nightmare deja-vu. Another Sigrun lesson: Be wary of burning out. Scouting is all about covering as much ground as efficiently and safely as possible while minimizing vulnerability. Move only as fast as you can while still ensuring you can defend yourself, even hours later. You never know when you’ll need the energy to run for your life. 

So Emil gripped the flamethrower tighter, and made sure his knife was loose in his sheath, but he did not run. The flare gun remained cold in his backpack. He strode through the center of the street and kept watch on the unbroken snow and the cracks in and between the tall buildings, the open dark mouths of the apartment lobbies and the dim windows, each step taking him deeper and deeper into the city. 

********************************************* 

As he approached the summit of a low hill a dense line of treetops made themselves visible. They creeped up from below the horizon the higher Emil walked, a frosty snarl of branches thicker than any he had seen since entering the city. It was the first sign of the city park. 

Emil broke into a smile of relief and let the weapon in his hands relax a little as he picked up the pace, willing to sacrifice a little security in his eagerness to cross the final remaining blocks that separated him from his destination. 

Truthfully, he wasn’t as worried about an attack as he had been upon starting off, even in a place as crowded with urban sprawl as this. The streets lately had started to show more wear and tear. Windows were now commonly shattered. Doors fell off hinges or were ripped off entirely. Cars were scattered akimbo across road and sidewalk alike, many overturned or crashed through walls. The gaping wounds left in the structures exposed the interior to the elements, diminishing the likelihood of anything making a winter nest within. 

Rounding the peak of the hill, he was finally able to get a good view of the park. It was the length of several sports fields, ringed with trees that occasionally dotted the interior. It was particularly dense on its far back side, becoming a veritable small forest. No buildings rested on its side of the street, and Emil’s hopes picked even further up; this place would be excellent shelter for someone stranded in the city. 

Now he stopped bothering to scout buildings framing the sidewalk at all. Emil’s attention was fully on the park as he approached, gaze intent for anything that would indicate the scout had been here recently. He looked hopefully at the open sports fields as he approached, at the shadows under trees, at the worn statues and dilapidated benches that sporadically littered the area. 

There was no tracks within sight among trees or across fields. No sound or sight from the forest. No rifle shells or troll carcasses marred the snow. No sign that anything, rash or man, had taken step in the park in years. 

Emil searched all around the perimeter of the park, scouring the groves and peering into every nook or cranny he came across. Some he checked twice. He walked through the densest part of the trees that he could manage. Spindly tree branches scratched at his face and ensnarled in his hair. Emil impatiently pulled them out, a tree occasionally claiming a small locket of blonde hair as a trophy as he did. 

He finally came to stand at the perimeter of the park and street and stared out at the town ruins. Tracks crisscrossed the snow frantically behind him now, but they Emil knew them to be his alone. 

Lalli was not here. 

The disappointment was so heavy that it hit like a physical blow. With it came the bleak realization that he didn’t know what to do next. He had been pinning all hope on the park. Emil didn’t have any other backup guesses of where he thought the scout may have gone. Anything else would be just striking blindly out, and Emil had seen the area map before he set out. There was a lot of ground left they hadn’t explored besides just this stretch. More than he could cover on his own. 

And the true threat. Time. How much had he wasted combing through the park? Twenty minutes? Thirty? 

The wristwatch Mikkel had equipped him with read back the time as 13:02. Almost half of his total time had already elapsed. 

Emil knew he was fast approaching a dire juncture. The park was seven kilometers deep from the town’s border. Already a little under two hours’ walk, and there was still another four kilometers to go until he had searched the main highway alone. Emil had given Sigrun his promise that he’d make it back to the rendezvous point in time, but the price to keep it may turn out higher than Emil had bargained for. 

If he didn’t find Lalli soon, he was going to have to choose between abandoning the search or being abandoned himself. The choice to be the final person to give up on Lalli’s life and leave him to the city, or to join him on the Missing in Action roster Sigrun would submit back at the Known World. 

His throat suddenly dry, Emil unhitched the canteen for another drink of water. It struck him how tired he was. He hadn’t had much in the way of rest or food over the previous two days, on top of not being used to cross-country distance of any kind. The rifle and the backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders and his hands were sore from carrying the flamethrower such a long way. Thank the gods for Sigrun’s foresight regarding all the ammo Mikkel wanted him to bring along. It was a lot of physical misery Emil wasn’t accustomed to, yet none of it hurt quite like the ache in his chest. 

But there was still some precious time left before he had to turn back, and Emil intended to make the most of it. However best he could. He wiped the back of his mouth with a gloved hand and narrowed his eyes at the ruins, mind racing. 

Just as the map had shown, the street hooked left and ran around the park perimeter before continuing on to the north. From Emil’s elevated vantage on the hill before descending to the park, he had seen some of its path before it disappeared into the gulch of urban sprawl. Numerous smaller streets branched from the main artery, lesser veins that spread wider the arms of the labyrinth. From the spot on the hill it had seemed a daunting expanse to search. Here at the bottom, it seemed impossible. How could Emil hope to find a single lost soul, hidden somewhere in depths? Even with all the time in the world, it felt an insurmountable task, and Emil barely had any. 

Stand still. Stay silent. It was the first rule of self-preservation every new military recruit was taught. How many times had the words been drilled into his head by commanding officers, up to and including Sigrun? It was gospel among soldiers. Abandon stealth only in instances of vast advantage or vast desperation. 

Emil wondered what Sigrun would say if she could see him now. Cupping one hand around his mouth with his weapon steadied in the other, Emil shouted into the deserted street: “LALLI!” 

His voice was hoarse but it shattered the stillness and reverberated into all the empty spaces of the city, the echo seeming to stretch for miles. A flock of large black birds took startled flight from several blocks away. Emil listened to the beating of their wings and the following silence for a long minute, the flamethrower held at the ready for any trolls that came rampaging through the street. When none appeared, he tried again. “LALLI! CAN YOU HEAR ME?” 

_Hear me?…...me?…me?…_ implored his echo to the city. There was no answer. No troll attack came charging out from the ruins. And certainly no returning call from Lalli. The silence, when it closed in on him again, was more stifling than ever before. Emil checked his watch for the time. He continued north. 

********************************************* 

Emil’s pace had slowed to a walk by the time he reached the railroad. It was the last landmark he recalled from the map before the river itself. The flamethrower dangled loose from a hand, forgotten and unneeded as he trudged forward, finally glancing around at the area when he reached the center of the tracks. 

There was a crumbling platform standing some hundred meters away, its ceiling mostly collapsed on top of it. A large structure to his right had been completely torn down into a heap of rubble. Judging by the myriad of small rusted holes marring its side, it had once been the recipient of several rounds of gunfire. 

Emil barely paid it any mind. The city had largely stopped interesting him. Reaching the railroad meant he was another two kilometers further into the city. Two kilometers that Emil had walked calling Lalli’s name, pleading for his friend to answer him until his voice was ragged, no response ever coming. Behind its shroud the sun was creeping closer toward the west. Shadows in the city were beginning to lengthen. Emil knew it was time to turn back. 

The air around him here was heavy with a pungent smell, evidence of the nearby river Emil supposed. Clouds like smoke rose from over the horizon, perhaps the harbinger of another winter storm. He stood on the iron rails, blinking to clear the sudden sting out of his eyes. He had known this was a possibility even when he originally proposed the idea, but he never imagined it could hurt this badly. 

“LALLI!” Emil shouted again into the waste with as much voice as he could scrape together, the desperate call echoing down the tracks before fading into silence. _Answer me, please, please hear and just answer me,_ Emil begged the scout, but of course, there was no reply. 

Sigrun had been right after all. Lalli really was lost for good somewhere this in this wretched, dead place. He had been ghosted away along with the trolls and animals and everything else in this unnatural city. 

Emil was having a hard time keeping his footing. His head swam. He sank to his knees, the first time he had sat since setting out from the tank. His vision was bleary as he stared at the iron rails rising half-visible from the snow, his breath coming too quick to quite draw sufficient breath. 

At least he hadn’t gotten himself killed getting here. Small victories. Sigrun would have had _the most_ awkward conversation with his aunt and uncle if he had wound up missing as well. Kind of like the one she was going to have to have with Tuuri’s brother about why his cousin wasn’t coming home. And whatever other family or friends the scout might have back in Finland. 

Some hybrid of a laugh and sob jerked out of Emil’s throat. The slight hysterical edge to it was noticeable even to his dazed mind. He took a shaky breath and rubbed at his eyes. Emil was shivering without feeling cold. His teeth chattered from emotional overload as he fought to process the competing sensations of fear, guilt, grief, and fury. 

He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear this godsforsaken city into pieces, to force it to give back to him what it had stolen. But he was useless. There was nothing he could do. 

Finally, after a few precious minutes, the trembling was back under control and Emil felt like he had at least a tenuous grip on things. He had the impulse to call for Lalli again, but knew it now to be a futile gesture. Wherever Lalli was, it was somewhere beyond Emil’s reach. 

With a heavy heart he turned to face the solitary tracks he had left in getting here. Emil weighed firing a signal flare to the tank and decided he couldn’t bring himself to communicate with the tank just yet. Not when the signal he’d send would be the lone shot for ‘solo retrieval.’ It was too fresh a wound to face. 

After a moment’s consideration Emil hefted the flamethrower and jammed it upright into the snow piled next to the tracks. Sigrun would be furious at the loss of inventory but Emil was too weary and desolate to care. He wasn’t sure he could make it back in time without at least some lightening of the burden he carried. 

He had failed. Lalli was really gone. The thought still felt like madness, but Emil was grimly certain that it would sink in more over the long walk back. 

A final glance behind at the railroad, the shot-up ruins, the murky sky. The rifle left standing in the snow like a monument. And Emil started the lonely trek back. 

********************************************* 

He returned the same way he came, not bothering with the backup route. It only ran a half-kilometer further west from the main street, not enough to provide what Emil considered to be any better chance of uncovering the scout. He had wandered the main road for hours, scoured the park and the ruins, calling Lalli’s name over and over to no avail. If the Finn were still alive, it wasn’t in this part of the city. 

Emil stared at the path ahead of him sullenly, bangs plastered across his face and obscuring his eyes. Here, the street was narrow and the buildings loomed close, but Emil didn’t care. Over the past hour his despair had fallen into something like exhausted indifference; he had at last become numb to the misery of the past two days. He wanted only to rendezvous with the crew and sleep the entire way back to the Known World. He would turn in his weapons at the border and return to Sweden. Discard any ambition for a military life. Spend his years in some boring office job looking forward to the day he managed to forget everything about this miserable, misguided undertaking. 

So deep was Emil in his brooding that he had traveled the better part of two blocks before consciously noticing the dull tapping sound coming from somewhere off to the right, quiet but drawing louder as he walked further south. 

_Thud. Thud._

Emil paused, his blue eyes flickering up. The noise was faint. Repetitive. He shrugged and continued trudging forward again, apathetic. Another door in the wind. 

Except the wind wasn’t really blowing through this block. Emil’s sweaty bangs were stuck to his forehead instead of whipping about his face and the air felt still and leaden. The sky was a rippling river of cloud high overhead, but here the narrow streets choked out most of the breeze on the ground. 

Emil halted. 

_Thud. Thud. … Thud._

The sound shifted into an uneven cadence. Whatever it was, Emil judged it to be only two or three blocks over. He slowly unshouldered the rifle. He removed the backpack as well, setting it on a shop patio. 

The sound paused and he held his breath until it started up again a few moments later, that same rhythmic dull _tap tap tap_ with the occasional irregular pause. 

A nearby alley offered a shortcut in the right direction and Emil crept into it. Dim as it already was outside, his eyes were still unprepared for the darkness between buildings. He almost crashed into an overturned bin, catching himself right before kicking into it with a boot. The exit beyond was a bright grey sliver slashed through the black world. Emil approached it as quietly as he could manage, each step deliberately placed in the snow as he struggled for stealth. 

When he was almost halfway down the alley the sound halted again. Emil paused with it, not daring to breathe in the abrupt hush, finally creeping forward again even when it failed to return after a couple long minutes. It was still silent as he cautiously poked his head out of the alley to take in the view beyond. 

There was nothing of note among the ruinous buildings but Emil inhaled sharply at the sight in the snow. Footprints. _Human_ footprints. They were headed north, cutting through the center of the street, visible for a block ahead before disappearing out of sight. 

_Lalli!_

Heart racing, Emil leapt out of the alley and broke into a run, as much of one as he could muster with the rifle in his grip, following the tracks up the street. They too had been made a fast pace; widely spaced and a little uneven. They looked freshly made. No older than that day, surely, as it had snowed the night before. And they had been headed right toward Emil’s earlier location. 

The tracks turned down a street heading east. Emil followed. It was on his lips to call the scout’s name again when an abrupt _thump_ interrupted him. He jolted, halting mid-dash and almost losing his footing. 

In his excitement, Emil had forgotten what he was following in the first place. The sound picked back up again, the tempo uneven, the volume oscillating between fainter and louder. And so very close by. 

Emil didn’t know what instinct it was that prompted him to keep quiet instead of shouting Lalli’s name again. It was on his tongue to do so. And surely the noise was the scout. It was coming from the exact direction the steps went. Back toward where Emil had been calling his name. 

But he couldn’t imagine what the scout would be doing that would cause that strange arrhythmic noise. And wasn’t it peculiar if Lalli had heard Emil, but had not answered back? Even taking the Finn’s usual levels of caution into consideration. 

Something about it felt off. But this was Lalli – _Lalli!_ Emil could have been drunk on the newfound hope. He wanted to see his friend desperately badly. He began tracking the footsteps again. Around another corner they went, Emil following suit as he looked eagerly around the turn, hoping beyond fervent hope to see sight of the scout, ready to shout in joy at the sight that awaited him. 

What greeted Emil instead made him draw up short. Ahead of him, the tracks led several meters down the street before disappearing into a torrent of disturbed snow. A rift carved through the powder to the asphalt below led to a nearby building. Angry red stains were soaked around the site and alongside the chasm left in the powder. The crimson trail dribbled out of the footprints’ abrupt end and through the building’s entrance, through which the sound continued to reverberate and now it seemed loud enough to hammer directly on Emil’s brain. 

Time seemed took on a surreal lag as his gaze traced the path of red up to the building’s patio and into the lobby. The main door was inwardly open. Its edge methodically thumped against the wall as a gangrenous form tearing at a prone shape backed and bumped into it. With horror Emil made out the thick head and wet glistening jaws of the troll, the still identifiably-human shape of its prey. Blood was everywhere. It dribbled from the troll’s yellowing teeth and almost completely saturated the body’s brown clothes into black. One hand was somehow untouched by the gore and Emil watched it jerk and twitch as the troll plucked at the prone shape, its hindquarters _thump-thump-thumping_ into the door behind as it yanked at the body like a hound with a mutton bone. 

The nausea hit Emil without warning and then he was doubling over in the snow and retching alongside the blood. Startled from its fixation on its meal, the troll’s head snapped around. Emil saw many mucous-lined eyes, sickly pale green and settled deep in a head that otherwise seemed all folds of sagging flesh. It opened its mouth and screeched, strips of cloth and a horrible red jelly-like substance visible around its rancid teeth and under its tongue. 

Emil was still gagging as he tried to ready the rifle. The troll circled to face him, the bloody wreck mercifully hidden from view as it did so. Thick feet with too many fingers clicked through the puddles of blood as it approached a few steps out of the entrance, more screeching hisses crowing from its veiny throat. Emil had no idea what type of creature it may have been in its formal life, be it human or animal or both.

Part of him was in shock but more of him was driven by a fury that Emil had never before known. His crewmate and friend was lying mangled beyond personal recognition. This wretched creature was to blame. Emil’s pulse raced loudly in his skull as he took aim. The troll made to leap at him from the doorway as Emil fired all six shots from the chamber, two disappearing into the darkness of the building beyond but four hitting mark. Two pierced the troll’s head, one tearing right through the rheumy eyes. The creature thrashed and screamed, its head smashing into the frame of the door, the weak wooden rot splintering beneath the impact. 

Emil looked desperately around as the wounded troll’s cries rang out like a siren in the city. He patted at his chest, instinctively reaching for more magazines from the bandolier with which to reload the gun. His hand instead touched the smooth round canisters of flamethrower charges, and Emil’s heart lurched; he had left the flamethrower behind at the railroad tracks. His rifle ammo was in the backpack, several blocks away. 

By now, a frantic litany had started in his mind. _Oh gods oh gods oh gods Lalli, Lalli how could this happen, not this, oh gods anything but this…_

Over the death throes of the troll came another warbling yowl from somewhere in the ruins. Something had heard the shots or the screams and was coming to investigate. A second call answered the first, further off to the south but sure to approach quickly. 

Emil had no usable weapons save for his knife. He fiercely wished for the flamethrower. With it, he could have at least set the place ablaze. Grant some last measure of dignity to his friend, rather than leaving him behind like _that_ …

Overwhelmed, Emil turned to run. He followed the footsteps back the direction he had come, around the corner and back toward the alley. Another hunting cry resounded from the city, definitely closer, and Emil knew it would be upon him soon. 

His left foot hit a slippery spot, some shrapnel buried beneath the snow, and he fell. He landed easily on his hands but it still seemed to knock something out of him; Emil was fast approaching his limits. Dumbly he stared at the two sets of prints in the snow next to him: Lalli’s widely spaced, veering gait, Emil’s smaller prints running parallel, but made too late to be of any use to his friend. 

Emil’s smaller prints. That wasn’t right. Emil’s feet were much bigger than Lalli’s. 

Emil glanced back at his latest set of tracks, then at the first pair he and Lalli had left. Lalli’s set, the set he had followed north to their red grisly end, were a good ten millimeters longer than Emil’s prints, a few centimeters away in the snow. It didn’t make any sense. 

From around the corner, the dying troll gave out a particularly agonized squeal that abruptly ended as if choked off. Emil tore his eyes from the tracks and looked over his shoulder. Nothing in sight, but he could hear them just around the corner. Were the hunters attacking the one Emil had shot? He couldn’t recall if he had ever seen rash-life attack its own before. 

_Get the ammo. Get the hell out of here._

Sigrun had been right. There was something wrong in this city.

He scrambled to his feet again, senses reeling. Emil could feel a thought struggling to manifest itself in the back of his mind, something important, but it was drowned out by the overpowering instinct to run. He followed the prints to the alley he had earlier passed through, dashing blinding through the narrow path. This time he did trip over the trashcan, smashing a shin into it with a curse. 

The pack was where he left it as he exited the alley. He dashed to where it lay, immediately ripping it open and fishing for a box of ammo. Whatever had been running him down seemed to have been distracted, at least momentarily, by the dying troll. Emil unshouldered the weapon out and begin to fill the magazine. He had just gotten the final bullet loaded when the ground suddenly heaved upward beneath him, sending him tumbling to the churning earth below.


	6. Chapter 6

The wind was beginning ascent to a high-pitched whine as it skittered along the mouth of the great drainage pipe, frequently soft but increasingly shrieking. The sound was faintly alien in nature, eerily reminiscent of the strange emanations that rang out in the Silent World when rash life came out at night to hunt. Perhaps it was a sign that it would soon be evening for true.

The pipe itself lay half-buried beneath a fall of snow, one exposed end capped by an icy grate. Only faint illumination and occasional sunbeams managed to eke way into the interior. The tunnel was lined with stones marred by dark stains, grime and algae that had long ago withered away. A centimeter or two of foul muck, too gelatinous to freeze entirely, stagnated along the base. An occasional slow drip spilled through the rusted bars of the drainage grate and down into a gulch below. 

Measuring from the grate inward, the pipe stretched only a few meters before meeting an abrupt end. A sloping heap of collapsed stone cut the pipe's mouth off from the rest its body, aftermath of a long-ago ceiling collapse. The damage left several cracks to the outside world in the ceiling, most fairly small but the largest at least a half-meter wide and long. 

A single figure sat inside. The dim light cast a ghostly pallor on a form hunched over, head resting on drawn-up knees, face hidden by a fall of tangled ashen hair. One arm was loosely draped around the legs as the other lay prone, fingers curling slightly out of the tepid sludge. The left side of a white coat was stained in the deep red of drying blood. So still was the figure that any passing trolls may be inclined to think the body a corpse and continue on in search of livelier prey. 

Not long before they would be correct for thinking it. In the gloom of the tunnel, Lalli Hotakainen had lost count of how many hours had passed since he had set foot in the insane city. The tracking of time, usually an instinct as natural for the scout as breathing, had started to feel difficult as of late. He was beginning to question how many days had even passed. Life in the drainage pipe seemed to exist in a twilight stasis, one that played tricks with his mind and left him foggy and confused. 

But even if the particulars of it escaped him, one thing was of certainty: It had been too long. Field protocol demanded that the captain declare him a casualty after a single day of absence, and he had certainly surpassed that threshold. The tank will have given him up for lost and moved on by now. He was stranded, wounded and with an almost utterly exhausted luonto. 

There weren’t a lot of decisions left to make at this point, but there was still one of note. Lalli was faced with one destination with multiple paths. Give it enough time and winter exposure would eventually claim him but that was hardly a foregone conclusion. Lalli had been catching fragmented glimpses of what lurked under the city ever getting trapped in its territory. Death from the elements would make for a much cleaner end. 

********************************** 

From the very first foray into town, Lalli had noticed some things off-kilter about the place. There should have been more hives in the outer area of the city. The buildings were in pristine condition, prime nesting territory with sturdy, intact walls, yet he didn’t run across evidence of even a single den. In fact, the only rash-life met at all was of the roaming variety: Nomadic hunters that preferred to stalk its prey rather than trap it. They were all invariably weak and skinny even by winter standards, no challenge at all for the crew. That was weird too. 

In contrast to the immaculate perimeter area, the deeper inward ventured, the more destruction encountered. Razed buildings, dismantled vehicles, bullet fire sprayed through windows and embedded in walls. Far more violence than usually seen in these small civilian towns. And all of it seeming to concentrate in the same direction, the north. 

It was strange, but it was not inherently dangerous, so Lalli did not report it to the captain or make an attempt to articulate it to Tuuri. 

Then came the night he set out for the river. 

Lalli hadn’t left the tank that evening with any real intent to reach the northern sector of the city. It was just a general direction to go as he looked around for potential salvage sites or signs of rash-life. The night was proving to be as uneventful as all the others and the scout was considering turning back when something unexpected had caught his attention: The smell of smoke, seemingly impossible yet unmistakable on a south-blowing wind. 

The scout had decided to seek the source. In hindsight, it made for an even graver error than neglecting to tell the captain about the strangeness of the city had been. 

He had fled south after, heading almost instinctively for a forested area recalled from the map, a park, but was forced to take shelter before reaching it. It was then that Lalli began to see glimpses of the giant. It was massive, and it was starving. He could feel its hunger as it crawled through the sewers, stirred by the commotion in its territory. It was willing to devour anything it could find. The living. The dead. It made no difference. Little wonder they hadn’t found a single nest in the city. 

Faced with injury and a luonto tied only by a spider’s strand of thread, Lalli had been unable to think of a means to escape both overland pursuit and the monster below. And now without the tank there was no place left to go. 

**********************************

Lalli had grown accustomed to the notion that this city was to be his grave but it had taken some time for him to around to it. He certainly had not been as accepting when he first took sanctuary in the vast duct. 

It seemed a lifetime ago since the scout had stood doubled over below the pipe’s low ceiling, thin chest heaving and hands shaky as he tried to do something about the hole in his side and the nauseating array of emotions that assailed him. 

Thinking about the immediate past made him feel sick so he had forced it out of mind even as he staunched the wound it had left in his side with a compress ripped from the fringe of his coat. Unfortunately, that had only left him with the future to consider, and the increasingly strong possibility that he wouldn’t make it back to rejoin the others. Lalli had been caught off guard by how unhappy it made him. 

He had always known he would die alone in his work. It was simply what befell those of his profession sooner or later. Lifelong acceptance of this fate had always let the scout regard his own death with a sense of closure on the few other occasions he had faced deep peril in the field. Within the cold stone walls of the drain, he had been startled to realize that it failed to do so now. The prospect of laying down his weapons before making it back to the tank brought only distressed aggravation. And Lalli, reeling and in pain and not great with self-analysis at the best of times, hadn’t understood why he should feel that way. 

He was sure it wasn’t concern over Tuuri and Onni. The scout and his family had made their peace over the dangers of Lalli’s life long ago, back when he was still a greenhorn with his first bad scare beyond the safety of the outpost walls. Onni would handle things badly because Onni always handled everything badly, but he’d have Tuuri to lean on. The Hotakainen family was well-versed in moving forward after loss. 

This foolhardy mission Tuuri dragged him along must be to blame. Somewhere along the way it had enabled others to intrude into his tidy, solitary life. It was complicating. And frustrating. Lalli didn't know how to cope with the unfamiliar sensation that there was some reason to harbor new regret. Something that made it feel like it mattered that he make it back. Why should it matter? 

The sense of loose ends made him anxious, made him want to keep struggling forward, even in the face of an impossibly dismal outlook. But the real challenge came in willing himself to venture back outside and into the city’s streets once more. Any real consideration invited the shiver of panic that made the scout flinch and hide away from the world. The fear was paralyzing. Then started up the images of the giant, called to the hunt by the clamor overhead. The seemingly insurmountable obstacles placed between him and the tank were overwhelming. Finally, after enough time had been fruitlessly squandered without coming up with a plan and enough fight had been bled from him, Lalli began to cease the struggle. 

*************************************

Time and place got hazy in the drainage duct. Occasionally his mind took to summoning disorienting blends of memories and hallucinations that seemed luridly real. For a heartbeat he was back in Saimaa, in the spring, rays of light and shadow dappling his face as he stood beneath the budding trees along the island edge in summer's afternoon. He could feel the warmth on his skin as he looked toward the sun. It was a crushing disappointment when the sun and the leaves disappeared, and Lalli was again in the filthy hollow belly of the pipe. It reminded him again of how he had been unable to reach the city’s one forested area, the park. Lalli had striven for it before being driven underground. He would have much preferred to die among the trees than underground like some kind of vermin. 

Later he scrambled upright, gasping as ink-black water seemed to bubble from the floor to engulf his feet. It was ink black and entirely opaque, hiding any number of horrors beneath its surface. The vision evaporated when he recoiled, but the unsettling impression of dark oceans haunted him for some time after. 

He received visitors too. He saw Onni painted in the pulsing red light of the shipping docks, pleading with Tuuri to skip the mission and stay home. Lalli wondered how smug the real Onni would be to learn just how disastrous the trip turned out. He would be insufferable for some time. Visions of Tuuri occasionally spoke to Lalli directly, reminding him that he was failing everyone now, just as he had failed so many others, so many times before. They were depending on him and he was just _leaving_ them. The image was so vivid that Lalli had reached a trembling hand toward it, but of course, he was alone. 

In one particularly hurtful moment Lalli had even imagined he could hear the cleanser from somewhere close by, voice desperate and barely audible above the wind as he called to the scout. 

In such low instances Lalli hugged his knees closer to his chest and consoled himself with the knowledge that his death would at least secure the safety of the others. The captain was a crazy person, always too wild and loud, but Lalli was certain even she would heed his disappearance for the warning contained within: Danger. Stay away. 

************************************* 

More time passed. Maybe minutes, possibly hours. The angle of light from the crack in the ceiling had steadily shifted until the beam was almost touching his right foot. Lalli found his bleary mind considering, not for the first time, releasing his luonto entirely. It was too weak to show him the path to his dream place. Expending the last of its energy would probably do him in. It would be a quiet, if inglorious, end. A peaceful last act, more peaceful than most of his kind were afforded.

Suddenly Lalli jerked his head from where he had been resting it on his knees, the quick motion making his vision swim. Goose bumps prickled at his arms. Some scouting instinct, foggy but not entirely snuffed out, had registered…something. _What was it?_ The scout held his breath, frustrated. It was hard to think clearly anymore. Reality had become so confusing. He was skeptical of how far he could trust his senses anymore, enough that he wondered if he perhaps he only imagined something. 

But there it was again, and this time he was able to identify what had caught his attention. A slight vibration in the pipe, barely detectable, but strong enough that Lalli knew it wasn’t just a product of his ailing mind. Some disturbance was making the earth reverberate with its force. 

A slight shudder crept through his frame. He had been hopeful that the underground giant would remain dormant until night, after Lalli would already be claimed by the cold and could be spared from having to decide between facing it or not. 

Yet despite his hopes, it was clearly already on the move now, and Lalli had left a blood trail in getting to the pipe that any beast or man could follow. 

The rifle stood nearby, propped against the stone tunnel and safely out of the sludge. Lalli’s trigger hand twitched but he made no movement to grab the weapon. He didn't want to end his own life, despite an undeniable appeal. It was a coward's way out for a soldier. And if he was doomed to meet the giant, far better to face it head on than die in a gutter like a pathetic, wounded animal. But the giant wasn’t the only predator in the city.

Lalli’s stomach lurched in the now-familiar nausea, the sensation nearly making him gag with its swift and merciless onset. He clamped his gloved hands over his ears. It did little to help stymie the rising anxiety. He didn’t want to die in this tunnel but he couldn’t leave either, because while the giant was the biggest thing out there, it still wasn’t the most awful. At least the trolls were _expected_ to be dangerous. No one expected otherwise of _them_. Lalli was going to be hunted down by his own kind. The hands over his ears trembled. There was nowhere left to go, nowhere he could flee the lurking giant or the impossible people that roamed above… 

The sound of gunfire rang out, shattering the encroaching wave of panic before it could engulf Lalli entirely. 

One shot. A rapidly following second. A staggered rainfall of more. Lalli’s hands dropped from his ears, leaving swatches of muck and blood in his hair as he stared through the drainage grate, wide-eye with disbelief. Even in his dazed state, the sound of the weapon was immediately recognizable: The echoing thunder of its rounds, the sloppy, haphazard fashion in which it was fired. 

The scout was reaching for his own rifle before he quite realized what he was doing. His fingers were clumsy from cold and disuse, aching painfully when he forced them to take grip on the firearm. The motion to stand threatened to grey his vision out as he struggled to his feet, bracing himself against the curved wall for support as he limped toward rift in the ceiling. 

But he hesitated when he reached it. His side throbbed angrily at the all the movement. The prospect of walking back into the street brought the queasy feeling back. Panic growled again from somewhere close by, circling at his heels and threatening attack as he eyed the sliver of grey sky visible through the crack. 

The gunfire had ceased. There was silence in the city. The realization made Lalli’s chest feel constricted as though in a vice. It spurned him into motion despite the nauseating fear. He was moving again, scrabbling up the loose stones as best he could with one hand clenched over his wounded side. 

Standing outside beneath an open sky after so long underground brought a fresh wash of vertigo. Lalli grimaced as he tried to get his bearings. It was still daylight out. The shots had sounded from somewhere to the northwest, not much further than a kilometer away. Which meant it was back in the direction of the river. The scout swallowed, throat dry. _Don’t think about it. Don't think about it. Just move_. He slung the rifle across his shoulder and started in that direction. 

Lalli ran as best as he could, abandoning any pretense for stealth. He was moving too heavily on his feet to be anything other than terrible at it, and besides, the commotion from the gunshots would have already gotten the attention of everything in the area. They would all be traveling to the same destination. Lalli just needed to get there first. 

He badly hoped he had not confused the situation. It was a disquieting thought that his mind was maybe playing tricks on him again, that perhaps he only recognized the gunfire because had he so badly wished to recognize it. And at the same time, absolutely did not wish for it. Lalli felt strewn in all sorts of directions. This city was wrong. It was deeply wrong. It was dangerous in a way the scout had never experienced before, and the cleanser needed to keep far away from it. 

The acrid smell of gunpowder was becoming noticeable and he knew he was drawing near. Lalli slowed his pace as he reached a set of tracks in the show that came rounding widely out from around a corner, a large step that lurched from side to side and left a print he did not recognize. He studied them as he limped along, a heavy weight settling over his heart. 

So. He must have been confused after all. Lalli's eyes flickered around over the unfamiliar ridges of the track in the snow. It was still something of a relief, but it tasted much more strongly of disappointment. 

Then new tracks were in the snow alongside the first, appearing out from the recesses of a nearby alley. They were both coming and going, one set leading ahead in the same direction traveled by Lalli and another returning to the alley in a messy sprint. Lalli stared. There was no mistaking the tracks. He had been walking alongside them all winter. They were as familiar to him as his own. 

It was an infuriating sight. Of course the cleanser would be bullheaded enough to come looking for Lalli despite the ample warning signs of danger. It was just like him. Lalli should never have expected anything else from the stubborn Swede. He tried to swallow down a sudden lump in his throat, painfully aware that he hadn’t heard gunfire in several long minutes. Stupid Emil, had there ever been anyone so reckless? What a disaster. 

Another quake beneath his feet and Lalli set forward again, drawing the rifle and clenching it tight as he turned down a street of his own in the same direction as the alley. The vibration was much stronger in close proximity. The earth itself seemed to shudder. What complete lunacy to be running _toward_ it. Lalli’s instincts screamed for him to turn for another direction, any other direction. Then he was turning a corner, gun at the ready, and the path dead-ended into chaos. 

Even anticipating the giant, Lalli still caught his breath involuntarily to see it. A hazy cloud of debris rose from an eruption in the road. Chunks of asphalt were strewn about as though around a blast site. From an undulating crater of rubble rose several towering insectoid limbs, black with an oily, iridescent sheen and covered in vicious-looking barbs. The legs lashed out in a frenzy, cutting great rends through the snow as they sought the earth for its prey. Emil’s rifle had wounded it, but it wasn’t enough to deter it. Not even close. 

The cleanser himself lay on his side mere meters from the writhing limbs, his back to the scout. Lalli realized with growing alarm that Emil wasn’t moving. The troll was striking blindly but any moment one of the massive, grotesque legs could find its target. 

After what seemed the longest ten seconds of Lalli’s life, Emil stirred, one hand sluggishly moving to the side of his head. A huge insect leg slammed into the ground close by, barely avoiding crushing him. Emil flinched away, but the cleanser didn’t react to it with nearly as much urgency as Lalli would have liked. 

Movement in the shadows of nearby buildings caught the scout’s sharp gaze. From the gloom materialized a head with too-many eyes, a crown of twisted horns, and mandibles that chittered excitedly together as it approached the scene. A bold scavenger from further down the food chain, daring enough to try and steal the giant’s stunned prey outright instead of settling for scraps. 

The newcomer was thin, Lalli noticed. Its frame was stocky but the flesh looked sunken around its boney outline. It scuttled toward the cleanser, so intent on its prey that it never saw the scope aimed at its head. The rifle felt heavier than usual in Lalli’s arms and the first two shots missed, only clipping the beast instead of hitting it dead on, but the following shots were better placed. It collapsed just a few meters from Emil, a spray of blood leaving a dark halo in the snow. Lalli saw the cleanser’s incredulous gaze go first to the downed beast, then to Lalli himself. Emil froze, his blue eyes going wide as they met Lalli’s. The tight feeling in Lalli’s chest unclenched, just a little. 

The moment didn’t last long. The shadow of a great limb passed over Emil’s face and the cleanser’s eyes went upward, watching the barbed leg swing overhead almost within his reach. He rolled to the side, escaping the onslaught as the leg came crashing to the ground. Nearby, the newcomer’s body did not fare as well. A limb slammed into the troll carcass with a sickening crunch, indenting it beneath the weight of the blow. The barbs hooked into its catch and dragged the carcass along as the limb retracted toward the crater in the street. Other legs converged on the body to help pull it along, the great chitinous limbs swarming the corpse until it was out of sight and underground. 

It was the opportunity Lalli had been praying they’d get. There was no way they were going to kill the giant with their current firepower, not when it was that big and especially not with its vital spots safely hidden beneath the ground. Their only chance was to run while it was distracted. 

Lalli shouldered the rifle and made for Emil. The cleanser was still on the ground and staring in horror at ruined surface of the street. Awful sounds came from the beneath the rubble, which shifted with the motion of the giant below. For once Lalli didn’t blame Emil for looking so shell shocked. The sight of rash life cannibalizing itself was repulsive. But more important than being gross, it had the giant’s attention off of them and they needed to take advantage of it. 

Lalli grabbed Emil’s arm, grip feeling weak as he tried to pull the heavy Swede to his feet with as much of his ailing strength as he could summon. He didn’t know how long they had before the giant realized more food was still around, to say nothing of what else the commotion was likely drawing to the scene. He needed Emil on his feet and moving. 

Emil stuttered something and Lalli ignored him, still yanking on his arm as he cast frantic glances around. A whistling cry drifted up from somewhere to the east. Trolls approaching. But nothing was bearing down on them yet, and the subterranean giant was fixated on the first kill. They had time. Finally the cleanser was on his feet and Lalli released his hold on him, still giving nervous looks to the surrounding alleys and buildings. Where could they go? Everything bad seemed to stem from the direction of the river. They needed to go south. South, where the tank had been camping. 

The tank. Was it really possible it was still here? Lalli considered the idea, found it too distracting, shelved it for now. Focus instead on what route would be safest to lead them to the city’s borders. Worry about the tank later. 

The scout decided to lead them for now back in the direction he had come. He began walking in that direction when a hand caught his wrist and pulled him to a halt. Lalli turned, confused and impatient, immediately searching the cleanser’s expression for explanation. _Doesn’t he know the need to get out of here?_ Every second was precious. 

Apparently Emil didn’t share the scout’s concerns, because rather than hastening to get away from their hunters like he should, he instead just moved his hands to clench Lalli’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the scout’s shoulders even through the thickness of the coat. Lalli tried to pull away, sure that Emil would understand the urgency, but the cleanser only continued to give him a look of desperate awe and said something in Swedish. Of course Lalli didn’t understand the words, but even he could recognize the underlying sentiment. He had heard the same urgent tone and seen the same expression from time to time back in Keuruu, when a scout or patrol already given up as lost managed to find their way back home after all. 

_I thought you were dead._ It was something to that effect, he was sure. Lalli agreed with him. He had regarded himself as dead, too. 

Lalli finally gave in, leaning forward and resting his forehead exhaustedly on Emil’s shoulder, sighing when the cleanser wrapped him in a crushing hug. For once the scout didn’t mind the contact. He had been so cold in the stone tunnel, and Emil was warm. The two stayed like that for a long moment, Emil probably convincing himself that Lalli wasn’t a ghost, Lalli letting some of the misery and loneliness of the past two days recede a little further. At last the cleanser let him go and Lalli stepped back from the warm embrace a bit reluctantly despite himself, more aware now of the winter chill than he had been.

The rubble of the street began to shift in a new direction and Lalli decided their grace period was up. They needed be gone from here. He grabbed Emil’s arm and pulled him toward the trail Lalli had left just minutes ago. This time the cleanser followed. 

At least for a few meters. Then Emil came to an abrupt stop, shouting something. Lalli wheeled, unable to hide his frustration and then shock as the cleanser ran back _at_ the eruption in the street. 

“Emil, idiot!” Lalli watched, horrified, as Emil disappeared into the haze still rising from the ground. It was only a few heartbeats later that Emil reappeared in a run, this time with a heavy pack slung over one shoulder and his rifle in hand, but it was long enough that the blocks of shattered asphalt seemed to ripple and heave in his direction. 

Now it was Lalli’s turn to have to catch up as Emil’s momentum carried him ahead of the scout. Lalli took off after him in a dash, gasping when the motion rekindled the pain in his side. The cleanser must have picked up on the scout’s intent for them to follow his own trail out because he was leading them along that path. Lalli couldn’t break out of a limp long enough to overtake him, so he let the cleanser take the lead a few meters ahead as the two fled the scene. 

Behind them came another bugling cry, one that signaled the chase was nearly over. Lalli wondered if they’d be better served hiding or fighting when overrun. He was still considering when the hunter shrieked again but this time in clear difficulty, its voice a startled wail rather than triumphant howl. The giant was proving excellent cover, at least against the most reckless of the first responders. Lalli should be more pleased, but he really only felt sickened by the notion. 

It was getting difficult to keep up with Emil. That was embarrassing enough in itself – Emil _never_ outran Lalli. Yet now after only a couple minutes’ jogging the scout was having to concentrate just to keep from staggering on his bad side and the cleanser was easily outpacing him. Lalli started to fall further behind, five meters now, then six, his breath taking on a slight wheezing edge. Whatever adrenaline had been keeping him on his feet this long was rapidly fading and with it, any vestiges of strength Lalli still had. 

Emil must have noticed something wrong as well, because he turned to look over his shoulder. Whatever he saw made him come to a stop, then begin backtracking to meet the scout. 

Lalli heard Emil shout his name but it sounded muffled. More weird unfamiliar language, a little hysterical sounding because it was Emil, then Lalli’s name again. Lalli wished he could communicate to Emil to just keep moving forward, that above all he needed to clear out of this area with or without him, but suddenly everything was fuzzy around the edges of his vision and the cleanser’s voice sounded disorientingly far away. With confusion, Lalli realized he had already come to a standstill himself and was currently swaying on his feet a little precariously. He hadn't even realized he had stopped running. 

The world began to spin. Lalli fell to his knees. The babble of incoherent Swedish buzzed across his ears like static as Emil reached him, likewise dropping to the snow and bracing the scout by the shoulders. Everything went grey. Lalli’s last awareness before blacking out entirely was of his own name ringing in his ears as he slumped into the cleanser’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell it's been a while! Sorry for the unexpected hiatus, anyone actually still following this fic. It was a very turbulent past several months in my family but the dust has settled and I'm very happy to be updating again. THANK YOU as always for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for medical squick in this chapter, in case that is not your thing.

The scout was dead weight against Emil and with an awful shock, the cleanser realized he might actually _be_ dead.

“Lalli!” Emil kept the Finn braced to him with one arm as he shrugged the pack off the other, yanking at it one-handed until the top finally unclasped. Emil rummaged around among the ammo boxes and flare charges for…what? His fingers brushed against the rounded edges of the first aid kit but he hesitated to grab it. With a sinking feeling, Emil realized that Sigrun had predicted it perfectly: Emil couldn’t recall a word Mikkel had told him in regards to actually using the precious first-aid supplies. 

And he didn’t even know what was wrong with Lalli in the first place. Emil smoothed some locks of filthy hair from the scout’s face and studied him. He looked terrible. Lalli had always been on the thin side—too thin, in Emil’s assessment, who was prone to fretting over the scout’s health at the best of times—but now he appeared downright gaunt, his high cheekbones cutting sharp angles in the sallow skin. He was paler even than normal, with eyes wrenched shut above bruise-colored rings. His white coat was exceptionally dirty beneath stains of dried blood, mud, and something that might have been oil. 

Or rather, some of the blood on Lalli’s jacket was dried. The white fingertips on Emil’s left glove had begun to turn a bright red where he was holding the scout. He stared at it the crimson stain, a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. For the first time, Emil noticed how the majority of blood was all concentrated around Lalli’s lower left side. In fact, the jacket seemed saturated there. Whatever injury the scout had sustained must have been aggravated by their sprint away from the giant and begun to bleed anew. 

_This isn’t fair._ He had only just found Lalli. It was appalling to realize the two may have been reunited only for Emil to lose him again, just as suddenly but for good this time. He wondered if he was going to throw up again. 

But to Emil’s immense relief, Lalli stirred slightly. The Finn made a pained noise, his eyes remaining closed as he shifted slightly in Emil’s hold. 

“Lalli? Lalli, can you hear me?” Emil begged, hopeful, giving the scout a gentle but insistent shake, but Lalli didn’t move further. 

Still. At least there were some signs of life from him, and that made Emil vastly wealthier than he had been an hour ago, when Lalli was all but lost entirely to the wasteland. He hugged the limp scout to his chest protectively as he looked around the city ruins. Emil needed someplace safe to take him, out of the reach of that _thing_ under the street. He wasn’t worried about the roaming hunters, those were all proving to be measly, hardly any threats to an armed solider, but the giant was a consideration of another color. It ruled the streets. They needed to go up. 

_And it isn’t just the trolls and the giant in the city, is it?_ With a roiling in his stomach Emil recalled the footsteps he had followed, certain they were Lalli’s…the grisly feast he had seen in shadows of the ruined shop, the erratic _thump-thump-thump_ of the door against the wall as the troll ripped and tore at the bloody form… 

There had been another person inside the city. 

Emil thought the notion would be a hopeful one. Where there was one person, there may be more, and they might know how to help Lalli. But it didn’t bring him any optimism. Instead, the realization was a deeply unsettling one. How many other people were there? They hadn’t responded to any of Emil’s calls as he searched for Lalli, and he had certainly been loud enough about it. Were they a salvage mission, like their crew? The captain claimed themselves to be the first to explore this part of the Silent World in years. So where had the stranger come from? 

Did they have anything to do with Lalli’s initial disappearance? 

Emil was unwilling to gamble with the scout’s life. Not with so many unanswered questions of dangerous implication. In the face of known and unknown enemies, the need to find shelter was growing more urgent. The cleanser’s gaze traced the silhouette of one building that loomed a few floors higher than its surrounding neighbors, a few blocks away from their current location. It had perhaps been an office building in its former life before becoming just another standing ruin in a land full of them. Though it wasn’t as tall or ominous, it still put Emil in mind of the towering high rises he had passed in getting here and the memory made him shiver. 

He gave Lalli another gentle shake. “I doubt you’re able to walk,” he said to the unresponsive scout, feeling a little guilty about disturbing him. “Just figured I should ask anyway. Okay.” Emil took a deep breath, the cold winter air biting at his throat, then hoisted Lalli over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The scout made a weak noise of protest at the treatment, murmuring something in Finnish in Emil’s ear, but didn’t wake. Emil considered the value of the various things in his vicinity – the pack, his rifle, Lalli’s rifle, Lalli himself – and decided to abandon the supplies and Lalli’s rifle, holding onto his own gun with his free hand as he braced Lalli by the legs with the other. 

Leaving the pack and its medical supplies was a painful sacrifice but they couldn’t go around unarmed. His own head throbbed something awful – he must have hit it on something when the giant crashed through the earth and sent him tumbling – and even Lalli’s slender frame felt heavy. But Emil wasn’t about to give in to exhaustion, not while he had strength left to draw breath. Not when he and Lalli had actually been reunited, against all the dismal odds stacked against them. 

The streets behind them remained clear as he trudged forward, a good sign. But Emil could swear the ground trembled slightly beneath his step. 

It was probably just his imagination playing tricks on him. A figment born of paranoia and the dizziness from the blow to his head. All the same, Emil slogged through the snow as fast as he could manage with the unconscious scout slumped over his shoulders, the office growing ever larger as they approached. 

**************************

The building smelt of mildew and rotting wood, with ample light making way inside to the dilapidated interior from rows of windows, some broken, many intact. Furniture was still arranged in an orderly fashion around tables and rooms, decomposing on its legs where it stood. Dust covered everything and stirred at his step, making his eyes sting and compelling him to sneeze a couple of times. But there was no evidence of the pulsating tendrils that indicated a troll nest or so much as a whisper of noise within, and Emil was gratified that his chosen shelter appeared to be a secure one. 

He carried Lalli up three flights of stairs before selecting a resting spot. Whereas most of the building was floored in tile, this floor was covered in a stained, withering carpet. More than a little rancid from age, but at least it was slightly warmer than the hard floors. In the winter chill, the tile had all the welcoming atmosphere of a glacier, radiating cold upward that Emil could feel through the soles of his boots. 

Emil dropped to his knees, a little heavier than intended, and unshouldered the scout. His breath was ragged from the exertion of climbing the steps. Everything hurt. His back and shoulders ached from the burden of carrying a second person, but it was his legs that protested most loudly all the exertion of the day, to say nothing of the pain in his head that had crystallized into a constant throbbing ache behind his eyes. 

Yet Lalli was here and he was alive. Every hurt was worth it. Emil would gladly pay the pain tenfold again if that was the price called of him to get the Finn out from harm’s way. 

He propped the scout beneath an exterior window carefully, gently turning Lalli’s face forward to better examine him in the wan light that crept in from an overhead window. 

The Finn’s eyes were opened slightly, mere slivers of silver beneath long lashes and half-closed eyelids. He had begun to shiver in the cold. To Emil’s disappointment, Lalli’s didn’t respond to the cleanser’s hand on his shoulder with anything more than a slight flickering of gaze upward, one without much comprehension. 

“I’m sorry. I should have found some way to bring the pack with us.” Emil sat back on his heels, regarding Lalli with deep concern. There was nothing for it; he was going to have to venture back out for the supplies. Maybe Tuuri’s instructions would be enough guidance on how to use the medical kit in some effective manner. He had to bank on that, because he was gravely worried about Lalli’s chances otherwise. 

“Please, Lalli, just stay right here.” It was a silly instruction and he knew it – Lalli was in no shape to be running off anywhere and wasn’t going to understand Emil’s Swedish anyway – but Emil felt compelled to say it anyway. After the past two days, he detested the thought of letting the scout out of his sight even for a minute and Emil wasn’t going to manage it without at least some ritual gesture to placate his nerves. “I don’t know if you can even hear me, but you’re hurt so I’ve got to go back for the supplies. I _promise_ I’ll be right back.” 

He removed his bandolier and belt before taking off his own jacket, laying it across the scout like a blanket and leaving Emil in just his black turtleneck. The sudden chill without the heavy garment wasn’t entirely unwelcome, as winded and tired as Emil felt. It was rejuvenating, and Emil was in desperate need of that. He watched his friend for a moment longer before slinging the rifle over a shoulder and turning away with reluctance for the stairwell. 

**************************

The pack and Lalli’s firearm were right where they had been left abandoned in the snow. Emil eyed them with a measure of suspicion from what he hoped was the relative safety of a raised wooden patio. They lay a good twenty meters away from his current vantage in the center of a narrow road. It was quiet in the city. There was no sign of anything to be afraid of, but there hadn’t been any sign of danger earlier either when the street had suddenly erupted from under Emil’s feet. 

He’d be dead if it hadn’t been for Lalli. Emil frowned out at the expanse of broken snow that lay between him and the precious supplies, the heat of shame warming his face in a flush. Even when Emil was the one supposed to be doing the rescuing. He had bungled it after mere hours on his own, needing the aid of someone who had been stranded alone and wounded for _two entire days_ to save his neck. The risk and toil suffered by Lalli was Emil’s fault. He certainly wasn’t going to let his friend down a second time. 

He dashed for the abandoned supplies with heart in throat the entire way, wondering with every step if the next would be the one for the ground would crack open beneath him and send him down to the clutches of the massive insectoid giant. But the street remained steady, the hunting cries absent. Other than the haze of debris still wafting to the sky several blocks away, it was as though the attack had never happened. 

Somehow the silence after such an encounter was even more unnerving than the sight of Rash life or chaos of a second attack would have been. Emil reached the pack and snatched it up by a strap before grabbing the second rifle. The cold’s teeth felt sharp without the jacket, his throat sore as he gasped for breath. There was no time to be wasted in lingering. He was growing more paranoid by the minute. He set off back toward the office, feeling bogged down under the weight of the pack but eager to return to Lalli and get his feet off the untrustworthy ground. His head was aching something fierce and for once he might have even welcomed one of Mikkel’s chirurgeon treatments to get some relief. 

The pain might be stress as much as the knock to the head, he considered grimly as he retreated. Emil had lost track of time in the skirmish and subsequent retreat to safety. The sun was hanging heavy and sullen in the sky at a sharp angle to the horizon. It had to be close to the rendezvous hour. He couldn’t deny it any longer: With the time he had lost facing the giant and Lalli out of commission, they weren’t going to make it back to Sigrun in time. 

**************************

Emil couldn’t shake the anxious feeling that he was going to turn the corner and see an empty room, but as he trudged out of the stairwell the scout was still there, right where Emil had left him. Lalli was hunched over, knees drawn up to his chest and face hidden in his arms with Emil’s coat wrapped around his shoulders. Emil smiled despite the gravity of the situation. He had seen Lalli take the same posture numerous times before, usually when beginning to lose the fight with exhaustion during morning debriefing with Sigrun. At such times, the captain would give up trying to extract any more information from the sleepy scout and leave Emil to prod him awake or carry him to his cot. 

He still couldn’t quite believe he and Lalli had found each other. Emil recalled with awful clarity the sense of despair when he had given up hope of ever seeing the scout again – it was like his heart had utterly bottomed out. The awe at seeing him again had stunned Emil as much as the knock to his head. He had thought it a hallucination at first, a vision born of grief and wish rather than reality, but then the scout was at his side and dragging him to his feet before the giant could crush him to pulp. Saving him. 

Lalli didn’t stir as Emil approached him, so the cleanser set the pack and guns to the floor and reached out a hand to his shoulder. 

“Lalli, are you—” But he was cut off before he could finish the sentence. Lalli cried out at the touch, springing to his feet and jerking away with a wild-eyed look of panic. Emil’s jacket dropped to the floor. Emil stared aghast, hand still hovering in the air where it had been on Lalli’s shoulder a moment before. He had never seen Lalli respond in such a way before – the scout looked utterly terrified. 

Emil was torn between trying to approach Lalli again to calm him down and giving him some space. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, striving to keep calm despite being alarmed himself, straightening up slowly so as to not startle the scout further. He lowered his hand carefully, every motion deliberate in an effort to be non-threatening. 

Recognition seemed to dawn with Lalli at the sound of the cleanser’s voice. “E-Emil?” 

Emil’s heart sparked warmly to hear his name in that heavy Finnish accent— _I thought you were dead, I thought I would never hear you call to me again_ — even as it ached at the obvious fear in the stuttering tone. Grey eyes met Emil’s for a moment before the scout gasped and doubled over, clenching a hand around his left side as he sank back to the floor. 

That was Emil’s cue to fetch the first aid kid. He upended the recovered knapsack unceremoniously, the contents spilling out to the moldy carpet in a clattering heap. The first aid kit was a shiny dark olive green with a large red cross emblazoned across its center. Emil set it upright near Lalli, who didn’t flinch away again. Instead, he only looked on wearily as Emil pulled off his gloves and carefully opened the box. 

Tuuri’s neat handwriting stared up at him from a small sheet of paper, resting atop of rolls of bandages and neatly stacked instruments and bottles in individually quarantined plastic bags. He picked it up and studied it: 

_Emil – Use tight bandages for bleeding wounds. Elevate to above the heart. Use the alcohol to disinfect. Mikkel says troll bites get nasty easily even if immune. Painkillers in the vials._

He set the note down. “Okay, that seems simple enough.” He talked as much to soothe his own nerves as he did to try to calm Lalli. “First though, I need to see what happened.” Emil gestured to Lalli’s jacket. “Can you take that off?” 

Lalli sighed, looking to Emil like he was gathering together strength before beginning to pull at the buckle of his belt, which was fastened at a spot around his torso a few inches higher than usual. A tourniquet, Emil realized. Next came the scout's own jacket, the length of which Lalli unzipped until his black sweater was exposed. Emil watched, feeling queasy as the scout pulled the shirt up to reveal a folded square of fabric packed against his side, seemingly cut from the fringe of his jacket and stained a deep red. Lalli gingerly peeled away the makeshift bandage, his breath catching as the fabric clung to the open wound beneath. 

Emil had seen a vastly grislier sight that very afternoon but this one still made him downright nauseous. Lalli’s side and waistband were covered in dried blood. The wound itself was small, a circular hole of only a few centimeters but it ran deep, carving a path through the vulnerable pink tissue beneath and beyond. The removal of the bandage agitated it to bleed anew, a thin trickle that welled up to carve a fresh rivulet through the congealed red. 

“Oh, Lalli,” Emil said sadly. If only he had defied Sigrun and not wasted an entire day being useless before seeking out the scout, could this have been avoided? He picked up Tuuri’s note again. _Use bandages for bleeding wounds_ she had written, and Emil felt comfortable with that for the usual scrapes and cuts the crew earned in their salvage missions, but _this_? This was worse than any hurt yet suffered by the crew. The instructions seemed extremely inadequate. 

Emil bought himself some time by pulling the supplies from the kit and arranging them where he could study them. Bandages, gauze, a small pair of scissors, various items he couldn’t immediately identify, all wrapped in their sterile packaging. He stared at them dumbly, wondering where to begin. He needed to clean the wound, right? Mikkel had said something about infection, even if Lalli was immune. 

A hand plucked weakly at his sleeve. Emil looked up to see Lalli watching him with a worn expression, waiting for his attention. Having garnered the cleanser’s focus, the scout pointed at a canteen that had been among the contents of the pack – water. Emil handed it over to the scout. Lalli reached for a pack of gauze. With slightly shaky hands he soaked a square in water from the canteen and began to clean the area around the wound. It took some time to work through the dried crust of blood, but finally the skin was mostly clean. After a moment’s hesitation, Lalli dashed a little water from the canteen directly onto the wound for good measure, wincing at the contact. 

Emil handed Lalli’s next desired item over when the scout indicated it, a small brown bottle. Emil couldn’t read the language on the label but the sharp smell gave away its contents as he unscrewed the lid before handing it over – antiseptic. Again Lalli saturated a pad of gauze but this time he did not hesitate. He hissed as he pressed the wet bandage to his side, snarling what could only be a curse. The scout’s ashen face managed to pale even further. Lalli seemed to be threatening to black out again against the awful chemical burn so Emil braced him with a hand lest he fall over. Emil could only look on, feeling extremely guilty and helpless. 

After a while Lalli’s ragged breathing grew steadier and his fingers eased their pressure holding the gauze to his side. He pulled the cloth away with a shudder. Disinfecting the wound seemed to have winded the scout. He made no motion to reach for bandages, despite obviously being vastly more experienced with first aid out of the two of them. 

Emil knew the area needed bandaged and felt at least competent enough to manage that. He rubbed his hands in some of the alcohol to clean them and reached for a roll of beige bandages. The wound was an angry little mouth in Lalli’s side with dark, glistening depths. It was round – perfectly round. Emil frowned and reached a hand forward to examine the area but the near contact made Lalli recoil again. Emil caught a flash of the same earlier panic in the scout’s face and tried to ignore how it stung that Lalli should be afraid of him. The growing suspicion he was developing was of graver concern than Emil’s hurt feelings. 

Throughout the course of the winter, the three combatants in the crew had suffered a myriad of injuries at the hands of trolls. Emil himself had been patched up by Mikkel several times, and even currently sported a healing row of scabs on his calf from where a dog-sized troll had sunk teeth into his leg a couple weeks prior. The attacks invariably left ugly, jagged wounds with long tapering tails, the hallmark of fangs and claws forcefully ripped from vulnerable human flesh. 

Even Emil, notoriously squeamish with gore and inexperienced with field care, could see there was something different about Lalli’s injury. It boasted bizarre symmetry for a troll attack. There was no curve of claw or indent from a mouthful of teeth. It was simply a single, circular hole, a smooth-edged puncture that looked just like… 

...That looked just like a bullet hole. 

Emil’s eyes narrowed as, like a puzzle, several fragments of the past several days’ mystery began to align about their edges. Lalli’s failure to return despite the relative lack of overland troll activity. A stranger in the city that had been drawn to Emil’s shouting but kept silent himself. The scout’s frenzied panic upon waking to the sight of another person in his proximity, as though reacting to some recent trauma. Emil had never known Lalli to be daunted by any troll or giant alive, but how many times had he seen the scout close in on himself in face of Tuuri’s scolding or Sigrun’s shouts? Verbal aggression even from family and crewmates left Lalli shaken…the thought of how frightened the scout would surely be after an outright attack from another person made Emil see bloody _red_. 

Again he recalled the awful sight of earlier, the troll in the doorway. Only instead of abject horror, Emil felt a surge of ferocious vindication intermingling with the disgust: _Good._ Emil had always assumed no person could be so deplorable to deserve such a miserable fate as being eaten alive by a troll. Isn’t life full of surprises. 

He was staring at Lalli and the Finn was regarding him with something like fear now, Emil realized. The scout’s eyes were wide and anxious, his hands held up defensively as he cringed away from the cleanser’s obvious fury, the clenched fists and tense posture and grim, steely expression. 

Did Lalli think Emil was angry with _him_? 

Emil could have kicked himself for being such a wretch. Of course in his current vulnerability, Lalli would assume he was the target of Emil’s sudden temper. What reason did he have to think otherwise, when Emil was outright glaring at him? Knowing he was scaring his friend was like having a bucket of ice water over doused over his head, and Emil would have deserved the act in true – it cooled his anger immediately, at least enough for him to unclench his fists and take a couple of deep breaths. 

“Lalli, I am so, so sorry.” Emil couldn’t bear to meet that anxious gaze, to see the fear he himself had elicited in it. He instead stared miserably at the medical supplies, unable to keep his fingers from again digging into the fabric of his pants in balled fists despite efforts to relax. “I’m sorry for everything. For letting someone hurt you, for not coming after you the very minute we realized you were missing. For being so awful and useless and stupid that I only just make things worse now, and…and…” 

He didn’t know how to continue, suddenly overwhelmed in the face of his own shortcomings. At just how badly he had come up wanting when Lalli, the only real friend he had, had needed him. He bowed his head, thankful his blonde hair would at least hide his face from Lalli’s view so the scout would be spared having to look at him. 

He jumped, startled, at a light pat on the top of his head. Emil risked a glance out the corner of his eye, biting his bottom lip nervously. 

Lalli had stopped flinching away from him. The fear in his face was gone, replaced by an imploring, concerned expression that went straight to Emil’s heart. The scout reached a hand out to grip Emil’s wrist and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Then he pointed toward the bandages lying at the cleanser’s knees. 

Emil smiled despite himself, sniffing and blinking rapidly to clear his eyes of some wateriness. 

“Alright,” he agreed, handing a roll over. “We can do the apologies later after we get you patched up.” 

He watched nonplussed as Lalli went about placing a new square of gauze over the wound, lending a hand when directed to keep the fresh white cloth in place as the scout began to wind bandages about his midsection. Emil wondered how frequently Lalli found himself having to administer self-care in the field. Clearly the scout found handling even serious injuries to be a familiar practice, another indication of what a dangerous life the scout led compared to Emil’s own. 

Finally the scout tied off the bandage, unable to totally suppress a groan as he pulled the knot tight, and Lalli leaned his head back against the wall wearily, eyes closed. His face was very pale but there was a flush creeping in his cheeks that worried Emil. 

The scout didn’t react as Emil opened the stiff plastic wrap around the scissors and cut through the dangling tail of the bandage, not moving until Emil opened a second package and lightly touched his arm for attention. Lalli looked the vial in Emil’s hand uncomprehending for a moment before realization dawned. A grateful expression crossed the scout’s face as he took the offered painkillers. Emil knew from experience that the liquid painkillers Mikkel stocked included traces of sedatives, which surely wasn’t good while still trapped in the field as they were, but he was unwilling to deny any relief available to the scout. 

Emil packed up the unused supplies back into the olive green box as Lalli sipped the vial’s contents, grinning a bit at the disgusted expression the scout made at the unpleasant taste. Then he moved to join Lalli in sitting with back against the wall, silent at the Finn’s side as the man rested. 

He supposed they should make for the border. But Emil knew it wouldn’t do any good. The door had been shut, the window for retrieval closed. 

He didn’t know how many minutes had passed before Lalli broke the silence with a sigh. Emil looked over, surprised to hear relief in the sound. Lalli’s face had lost some of the awful pallor and regained a bit of color. Despite the sedatives, his gaze looked far clearer than it had at any point since their reunion. 

“Feeling better?” Emil asked, cheered by the improvement. It made for a nice distraction from the cold, clammy feeling that had settled in his stomach every time he thought about what came next for the two of them. He passed the water canteen to the scout. “I imagine you’re thirsty. And probably hungry, too – let me see if Mikkel included anything food-wise.” 

Emil wasn’t surprised to see that Mikkel had included a few servings of the dry field rations that served as the usual alternative to his candlewax gruel as he sorted through the rest of the non-medical supplies, still strewn about the floor where he had upturned the pack. He smiled to discover something he hadn’t been expecting: A small packet of the hard cookies Mikkel kept offhand, Lalli’s favorite treat. Apparently Emil hadn’t been the only one missing their lost scout. 

He offered the cookies and a pack of rations to the scout, who was taking tentative sips of water. Lalli chose the cookies—of course—and Emil pulled at the silver wrapping, then handed them over. 

“Don’t make yourself sick scarfing those down too fast,” he cautioned, opening the field rations for himself, but the warning was unnecessary. Lalli only nibbled at a biscuit, apparently not up to eating quite yet. His own rations were about appetizing as dust, and turned out he had as little appetite as Lalli, but Emil still forced himself to chew and swallow, chew and swallow, a mechanical act he derived no enjoyment from. 

He had promised Sigrun he would make it back. He was too late. They would never make it back home. 

The thoughts bounced around in his aching skull on repeat, unwilling to be ignored now that the immediate danger of Lalli’s health had passed. Emil supposed he could have kept his word to her and still made it back himself. The only price would have been abandoning Lalli as soon it became apparent that the scout was not in condition for a mad dash to the border. But the notion to leave the scout behind hadn’t even occurred to Emil when he had the chance, and he didn’t feel the slightest tinge of regret about it now. 

Lalli must have noticed something in Emil’s subdued demeanor. He had stopped gnawing at the cookie and was watching him inquisitively, an obvious question there wanting to be asked, if they only had a common language. 

Emil could assume what it was the scout wished to know. He shook his head. “It’s too late to meet them. Sigrun said we only had until 16:00 to make it back. It’s got to be close to that already. She won’t wait past it.” 

The scout seemed to understand what Emil was driving at. At least, he certainly understood that there was no urgency for them to get moving, and that likely could only be interpreted as one thing. They were well and truly on their own. Lalli continued to nibble at a cookie, looking thoughtful, as Emil finished the last of his tasteless rations. 

**************************

A winter spent delving into the Silent World had created a sense of inertia for Emil that was very difficult to shake off: One needed to keep moving to live. Even if there was no destination to move towards, he was beginning to get restless about staying holed up in this crumbling building. 

Emil began to gather the supplies he had scattered across the carpeted floor, frowning as he realized he’d never be able to replicate Mikkel’s neat packing job. Lalli watched him from the spot beneath the window, Emil’s white jacket clasped around his shoulders like a blanket. 

“I suppose we should make for the border,” Emil said, picking up an ammo box and stuffing it into the knapsack. “I still want to get out of this city, even if…well, even if.” 

One footstep at a time. Don’t think too far ahead.

Weight-wise the medical kit should come next but Emil wanted to keep it closer to the top of the pack in case they needed it. He set it aside and looked for the next heaviest item. When he found it, he held it in his hands and stared at it, incredulous that he could have forgotten such a crucial detail. 

“Gods, I am so dumb,” he announced. When Lalli looked over at him questioningly, Emil held up the flare gun for him to see as well. 

**************************

They stood outside of the office together, Emil with both rifles and the pack at his feet, Lalli carrying only Emil’s jacket, still wrapped around his thin frame. The scout had tried to return it to the cleanser but Emil had refused until Lalli had finally relented to keep it. The sun skimmed along the tops of roofs, beginning its final descent toward the horizon. Already the ruins were beginning a slow fade into darkness. 

Emil studied the flare gun held in his hand. It was a bright orange-red, garish in his black-and-rust stained gloves. The crew had never had need to make use of it before. What was the signal Sigrun had told him to use? Two white flares for a two-man recovery? Simple enough to remember. He loaded the weapon but hesitated from firing it for a moment. The whole point of the flares was to signal a beacon to watching eyes where they were. _Any_ watching eyes. What a loaded prospect that might actually be. 

Finally he marched several steps to the center of the road and pointed the gun toward the overcast sky. He flinched when he pulled the trigger, the shot ringing loudly in the otherwise silent city. One charge zipped upward, a blinding flare that left spots in his vision. Another shot, and a second dazzling streak was soon tearing alongside the first. 

Emil watched the charges until they were out of sight. The white flares were like lightning against such a dull grey sky. He wondered if Sigrun could see them too, or if she was even still watching the skies at all. 

They waited, but nothing reared head. Neither humans nor underground giant spilled from the shadows that were lengthening all about the city ruins. He and Lalli were seemingly alone in the city. 

Seemingly. 

He shoved the flare gun into the top of the pack and hoisted it over his shoulders, then did the same with Lalli’s rifle, keeping his own at the ready in his right hand. His body was exhausted and protested the burden but, like the instinct to keep moving, the need to remain armed was too deeply ingrained to ignore. 

“Come on,” he told the scout, after guns and supplies were secured. “Let’s get out of this creepy place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quiet lull for the boys to catch their breath. This chapter ended up only covering about half the originally planned content. I decided to split it into two since leaving it as one chapter would have ended up making it super awkwardly long compared to any of the others.
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who reads. It means a lot that anyone would take time to check out this fic, and I'm so appreciative of it!


	8. Chapter 8

Emil assumed they would head due south with all possible haste. From any way he examined it, it was the logical direction to choose. South took them away from an active, bloody battleground. Emil was optimistic the way would be safe, having just travelled the path and seeing how deserted it was earlier that day. There was an undeniable allure to heading toward the rendezvous point, regardless of the day’s late hour. And in the end, they didn’t have any better place to go.

There was a lot working in favor of the idea, Emil reasoned. But bizarrely, Lalli seemed to have other plans for them. 

The pair had made it just a few blocks away from their hideout when the cleanser suddenly felt a forceful tug on one arm, a bony grip that clasped him just below the elbow and jerked him to an abrupt halt. 

He could have jumped out of his _skin_. Emil nearly dropped the gun in the sudden lurch of panic as he whipped around, anticipating trolls or another giant to be bearing down upon them. But the city around him was empty. It was only Lalli, looking wan and exhausted but with a determined expression on his pale face. A light dusting of snow was beginning to fall and collect in the scout’s ashen hair, barely visible in the fading daylight of the abandoned streets. 

“You scared me half to death, Lalli! What is it? And why can’t you ever just use _words_?”

But Lalli had no answers for him. Instead he tightened his grip on Emil’s arm and pulled the unresisting cleanser a few steps back in the direction they had come, the gesture an insistent and plaintive one. 

Emil was flabbergasted. He anchored his feet and pulled free of the scout’s grip. “You can’t possibly want to go back there. All that blood loss has gone to your head, Lalli, because that’s a terrible idea. I don’t care if you want to lead but we’re not going that way.” _Strange footprints in the snow. Tap-tap-tap of a door against a wall_. “Any direction but that one, seriously.” 

Lalli glared at him, clearly annoyed at the resistance. He yanked at Emil again, this time with both hands, then stood back and crossed his arms over his chest. His expression was coldly impassive, with eyes narrowed down to slits and a tightly-clenched jaw. Emil sighed inwardly. He recognized that posture. Lalli was intending to be boundlessly stubborn about getting his way. 

Emil didn’t need to know Finnish to understand the message. _Come with me or go without me._

And what bloody well for? So they could have a messier death? Emil glared right back despite, frustrated, confused, with a chill he couldn’t entirely ignore running along his spine, but it was obvious he had been defeated: They both knew he wasn’t going to leave Lalli behind. 

“If we’re going that way then you’d better take this,” he grumbled finally, unshouldering Lalli’s rifle and handing it over. The scout accepted it silently and slung it in his usual crosshatch fashion across his chest, taking a moment to fuss over its placement on top of the extra layer provided by Emil’s jacket. When Lalli couldn’t get the strap to lay in a way that satisfied him, he finally removed both the rifle and the extra jacket, returning the latter to Emil. Emil accepted it silently and scrutinized the scout from the corner of his eye, frowning at the way Lalli favored his left side. 

The gear properly situated among them, the two regarded each other again. Emil, scowling, was highly dissatisfied with the turn of events and wanted Lalli to know it. Yet despite the earlier accusations, he still trusted the veteran scout’s judgment. Lalli had a reason for wanting to go the way he did. Lalli meanwhile had relaxed from open rebellion back to his usual indifference, but Emil noticed the way the Finn’s eyebrows drew together very slightly, a slight crease created between them. He was more nervous than he wanted to let on. 

But even if the prospect of going that way did frighten the scout, it wasn’t tempering his resolve. Nor was the wound in his side. Lalli turned away from Emil and began limping back the way they had come, back toward the office. 

The sudden engulfing solitude in the dusk was alarming. Emil hastened to catch up with Lalli until they were walking side-by-side. The scout didn’t turn to look at him, but Emil thought he saw a quick flicker of relief in Lalli’s face before the usual impassive expression reassumed. He smiled slightly, but only for a moment. Emil knew he himself probably looked openly terrified and felt entirely justified in it. Neither took the lead as they walked back north. 

North. Toward the giant and the river. 

*******************************

He was growing frightened of the dark. Emil been out after sundown a thousand times back in Mora without a thought of caution, but Mora’s tamed and well-lit streets were a world away. 

After its initial momentum, the night arrived swiftly, washing a dark gloom over the city that thickened until they were wading in a sea of shadows. Clouds drew across the face of the moon, frequently blotting it out and often leaving Emil with little to see by. The path of broken snow before them glimmered faintly in the sparse moonlight, a stark contrast to the ruins that stood around them, barely discernable from the dark sky beyond. 

Even when his vision adjusted Emil was left blind to all but silhouettes around him. The buildings were all turned to towering obelisks with blank, empty faces. His eyes played tricks on him as he walked. Trolls shifted into wrecked vehicles and debris and back again from one moment to the next, until he was high out and treading on eggshells, barely remembering to breath. 

As sight degraded, the city’s normally hushed ambiance flooded in to fill the void. Emil became hyper-aware of every sound around him. Had the town always been so full of creaks and shudders? It hadn’t seemed it when the sun was out. 

Every whisper of tree branch was a stalker’s breath. Every tap of a door in wind was another grisly feast. Lalli moved with the silence of a ghost while Emil clomped loudly behind, the noise a summoning beacon for awakening hunters. 

He had never been outside in the Silent World at night before. Not in the field, away from the safety of camp and crew. He felt naked and vulnerable, stripped of his defenses even as he held a rifle in his hands. The night belonged undisputedly to the Silent World. Those like Lalli might be afforded a tenuous foothold within it but there was no place here for Emil. 

It was almost enough to make him forget the constant paranoia that any moment, the ground could split open beneath their feet. Almost. 

His only solace came from sticking close to Lalli’s side. Emil was awed at the ease with which the scout moved through the darkness. It benefited them both. Several times Lalli saved Emil from tripping on overlooked wreckage in his path or directed the cleanser to move to one side of the street or another. Occasionally the scout had them turn down a new block until they were walking through fresh snow, their earlier trail abandoned. Emil grew increasingly perplexed at the seemingly random changes in direction but remained silent, his voice lost in the darkness. 

Once, Lalli abruptly halted Emil with an arm across the chest. The two hovered in complete silence for several long moments, Emil standing with heart hammering in his ears, unable to fathom what the scout had sensed. He saw only darkness, heard only the hushed whispery voice of the city. But Lalli was motionless, not a muscle moving, not an eye blinking as he stared forward into the inscrutable night. Finally the scout lowered his hand and began forward again, silent. Emil shivered and followed, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up though he could not say why. 

It wasn’t until Emil nearly tripped over something heavy and half-buried in the snow that he realized they had reached a familiar place. The tip of his boot caught the edge of railroad tracks and threatened to send him sprawling. Emil managed to catch himself before he went tumbling into Lalli, enormously confused for a moment before realization kicked in. 

_Railroad tracks_. Now that he was looking for them, Emil could see the dark bars of iron rising here and there from the snow. This was the furthest point Emil had reached on his search before giving up. He rubbed at his toe a little ruefully, wondering again at what possible reason Lalli had for wanting to come this direction. It was a miracle they had made it without incident, and a seemingly pointless risk. 

The scout was eying him after the near fall. He turned away when it was clear that Emil was fine, but this time it was the cleanser’s turn to draw his companion to a halt. 

“Hang on a second.” Emil found himself whispering to speak. “I want to look for something.” 

Lalli gave a perplexed half-tilt of his head when Emil took the lead but accepted it without protest, trailing behind the cleanser as Emil walked along the heavy wooden slabs of the tracks, walking east. Emil smiled ruefully when he saw the tracks – a little smoothed out around the edges from a fall of fresh snow, but unmistakably those of his earlier steps. 

He led them to the end of the tracks, just a few feet off the railroad, and pointed out the prize to Lalli: A flamethrower thrust upright in the snow, left behind when Emil turned had turned back. Emil shouldered the rifle and reclaimed the abandoned weapon, smiling fondly at it as he scuffed away the veneer of ice that had formed along its surface. 

“Should never have left you behind,” he informed the weapon. The flamethrower might be a more useful deterrent against the underground giant, should it attack again. The rifle bullets had been like shooting peas from a straw. And the flamethrower felt better in his hands. It was something he could fight back with. 

It was hard to tell in the dark but Emil thought Lalli might have rolled his eyes slightly. The cleanser couldn’t help smirking in response, especially as Lalli followed it up with a wry look that Emil interpreted as _are we done here?_

“Go ahead, lead on,” Emil replied, hefting the flamethrower. “You can make fun all you want now, but just wait until we’re dining on roast troll haunch over an open fire later. I’m going to expect an apology.” 

After some considering, this time Emil’s rifle would be remaining behind, though he held onto the extra rounds of ammunition for Lalli. The cleanser—exhausted himself—was feeling too weary to tote around both weapons and their supplies. The most value lay in diversifying their arsenal. Emil followed the scout as Lalli began forward again in that silent stride of his, heading north once more. 

And he then stopped. The wind tousled his bangs into his eyes as he stared at the back of the scout. 

“We’re going to die out here.” Emil had thought the words might come out sounding hysterical but instead his tone was very flat. 

His gaze met Lalli’s as the scout shot him a sharp glance over his shoulder, eyes wide. Alarmed? 

“We’re dead. That’s it. We don’t have a way out of this.” Emil’s voice was still calm but suddenly he couldn’t take another step, couldn’t even breathe. 

_We are both going to die out here._

The flamethrower. A campfire. The directions they go, or don’t go. The toil they both had suffered to get here. It was all a gesture of futility in the face of inevitable death. Emil felt stupefied as the weight of the situation finally struck him. They missed the rendezvous time and the tank will have left. They had nowhere to go. He opened his mouth to say something but realized he had no words. 

The clouds shifted and a sudden wash of moonlight illuminated the scout’s face as he returned to the cleanser. Even in his rising panic Emil was startled by the look of intensity on the Finn’s face as he took the cleanser’s arm again, the gesture again firm but not rough. 

“Tule mukaani,” Lalli told him, his voice hoarse. It first thing the he had spoken since uttering Emil’s name back in their earlier office shelter. Emil couldn’t understand a word. He only understood the urgency with which Lalli spoke and that the scout was intent on not allowing him the opportunity to wallow. “Sinun täytyy nähdä.” 

*******************************

How far north Lalli lead them, Emil was not certain. As to why, there was no indication of that either. There was nothing remarkable about the city north of the tracks, save that the buildings – from what little he could see – appeared even more ruinous and uninviting than ever before. Straight edges had been replaced by the uneven skyline of roofs and walls turned to rubble. Strangely, despite the difficulty it added in the form of trip hazards, Lalli had them keep out of the center of the streets and closer to these collapsing buildings despite their additional obstacles. 

Emil himself was still reeling. At least in some measure. The mystery of the scout’s behavior was helping give his panicking mind something else to focus on, though he still felt put out that Lalli wasn’t showing any sympathy for the gravity of the situation. Emil was considering trying to convince the scout to turn back when he realized there was something different in the atmosphere around them. 

At first he couldn’t put his finger on it. There was a pungent smell on the air, just faintly, and Emil thought at first it must be coming from one of the ruined buildings they passed. But the smell only intensified as they drew further north, and Emil realized finally that it was a familiar one, unrecognized for so long only because it was so unexpected: The smell of soot and carbon, of cleansing fire. Only there were no fires in the Silent World. They had been snuffed out long ago when the humans who maintained them fled or died. 

There was something in the sound of the night as well. A thrumming in the background that thickened as they went deeper in. Nothing that could be individually placed, but a definite gathering density of atmosphere that hadn’t existed south of the railroad tracks. 

Emil let Lalli take charge and did as he was instructed, moving about the frequent obstructions in their path as directed, his frustration with the scout’s obtuseness tabled for now in favor of grim marvel at the evolution of the city. 

Lalli finally halted in front of the dilapidated remains of what might have once been a multi-story office. Emil, distracted, nearly ran into the scout’s back for the second time. He looked the building up and down, as much as possible in the wan moonlight, and then looked at Lalli. The scout was scrutinizing the street with narrowed eyes. Content, he turned back to Emil, and pointed at the building. 

Emil’s declaration against going anywhere near that black mouth of an entrance was cut short by the scout shoving him toward the ruins. 

“Hey--!” 

His protest was cut off by Lalli’s gloved hand clamping over his mouth. 

“ _Shhhhhhh_ ,” the scout hissed at him, and Emil might have been angry if the Finn’s eyes weren’t so wide and anxious. Instead of getting indignant, he held up his hands in surrender, and Lalli released him with a long exhale. To Emil’s mild chagrin, the scout nudged again him toward the entrance, albeit more gently this time. 

Well, what the hell. He had trusted the scout this far. And perhaps he would finally get some answers about all bizarre things going on in this city. 

Emil crept through the entry. He couldn’t make out much inside the interior in the dark and found himself again relying on Lalli’s sight rather than his own. Their footsteps sounded dull against the surface of rotting wood and molding rugs as they moved across the room. He wrinkled his noise at the smell of mildew. 

It began to take shape to Emil that they were in a wide space, perhaps a lobby, with very little furniture to navigate around. Emil had the impression of draftiness, as though the room’s ceiling were very tall, but in the darkness he could not be certain. 

Lalli stuck close to the perimeter wall. To Emil’s surprise, the scout didn’t perform any of his usual due diligence to confirm the building was free of any Rash nests. He instead seemed to be looking for something specific, and after a moment of searching, disappeared through an opening to an adjacent room Emil hadn’t even noticed. 

Emil followed, entirely sightless in the dark. After a few steps inward a light touch to his shoulder stopped him. Fingertips guided his free hand forward until Emil felt his hand lightly bump into something solid. A railing. A bannister. _It’s a stairwell_ , Emil realized as Lalli tapped a toe against the steps before them. 

It was clear what the scout intended, but Emil found the notion daunting. In his mind, the apartment blocks loomed high over him, squirming floor to roof with Rash life. He swallowed, throat dry. He would go up the steps if Lalli insisted, but he didn’t want to go up them alone. 

Lalli placed a foot on the bottom step and Emil heard the ghost of a shudder in the scout’s deep inhale. _Lalli seems ready to drop_. The cleanser himself felt completely worn out and he had only been out here for one day. It must have been an inhuman effort for Lalli to make it this far. He had taken a bloody _bullet_ and insisted they come all this way just to show Emil something. Something that waited at the top of these stairs. 

“Lalli, wait.” Emil sighed, placing a hand on the scout’s shoulder. “I’ll go. You stay here.” 

Lalli was still for a moment and Emil could guess that the scout’s eyes were flickering across his face in that manner he had when the scout was puzzling out Emil’s meaning of something. Realization dawned and even in the dark, Lalli’s relief was apparent. He accepted the supplies pack as it was handed to him, resting it at his feet near the base of the steps. The scout patted Emil’s head’s and Emil was more pleased than regretful that he had offered to go alone. 

Lalli would never let him walk blind into danger, so presumably it was safe. Emil trusted the scout. He squeezed the scout’s shoulder back reassuringly, the gesture more for himself than Lalli, and took the stairs slowly, his steps slow and fumbling as he ascended. 

*******************************

Lalli waited for Emil at the ground floor. His arms were crossed over his chest as he leaned against the peeling drywall of the stairwell, trying to make the most offered respite to catch his breath. He felt the inhuman voices of the Silent World pluck at his nerves. They had been growing louder this evening than on previous nights. Drawing near. Cautiously, it seemed, but steadily. 

Lalli wasn’t surprised. The giant’s presence may have made the area dangerous even to other Rash life – anything that tried to build a nest was rooted out and devoured – but roaming types could still cross over its territory with relative safety, and food’s appearance around here was a rarity. Of course all the activity was gathering attention. 

Yet more than the hunters, he paid attention to the vibrations in the wall. Lalli could no longer hear the cleanser’s uncertain steps but their reverberations ran through the ancient frame of the building, letting Lalli know that Emil was still climbing and under no duress. 

He would have preferred to have gone with Emil. He didn’t like the loneliness left in the cleanser’s absence. Not so soon. But Lalli was seriously concerned at his ability to make it back down if he tried to drag himself to the top, so he was relieved at the offer to stay below. The painkillers and fresh field dressing had gotten Lalli back on his feet, but his strength was giving out. 

He had gotten this far on will as much as anything. Emil needed to see beyond the river. _Someone_ needed to see. And the cleanser would only panic if Lalli collapsed, so the scout had pushed his pain and exhaustion to the back of his mind and kept moving to get them here. 

The vibrations in the wall halted and did not resume. Emil must have reached the top floor. Lalli stared into the darkness of the lobby beyond, eyes narrowed. He knew what the cleanser was looking at beyond the shattered window. Lalli wasn’t always the best with empathy, but this time he could hazard a few guesses at how Emil must be feeling. 

After he returned, they could go wherever the cleanser liked. Lalli’s duty will have been completed. He would defer to whatever his counterpart wanted. 

He had been caught off guard earlier. At the railroad tracks, Emil had sounded like he was despairing. Like he had given up hope. 

The scout had never known Emil to give up. The Swede’s optimism had always been two things, infuriating and indomitable. It had been disconcerting to see him lose that quality, even when Lalli had already resigned himself to his own fate. It left him feeling shaken and inexplicably regretful. He didn’t want to hear that tone in the cleanser’s voice again. So wherever Emil wanted to go now would be fine. 

He rested his head against the cold wall, grateful for the rest. His side was throbbing in an increasingly vicious fashion but he couldn’t afford the muzzy head more painkillers would give him. Lalli wasn’t relishing venturing back out into the night, especially after Emil had fired off the flare gun. Gods knows what had seen that. Had Lalli not been half-addled from the initial effects of the medicine, he would have stopped its use. 

Nothing to be done for it now, though. The gun could not be unfired. The stage outside will already be arranging itself in response. Lalli pulled his jacket’s hood a little tighter over his head, glad for the warmth it offered, and continued to keep watch. 

******************************* 

On the top floor of the building, some three flights up, Emil stood before a vast and shattered window. The wind whipped around jagged edges of shattered crystalline glass, frigidly cold and loud in his ears as it leeched the breath from him. 

Emil didn’t even notice. He stared beyond the window. 

_This is—_

*******************************

Lalli sensed the attack before it landed. 

He was still only half-listening to the discordant voices of the locals when they suddenly fell silent in near-unison, save for one particularly insistent tone that continued to whisper somewhere on the edge of his periphery. 

Alarmed by the abrupt hush, Lalli only had a moment to snap to attention before a great swelling of fury and malevolence and most of all _hunger_ replaced the quiet, staggering in its force. 

Lalli gasped, clamping his hands uselessly over his ears at the sudden torrent as if the sound could be shut out. His voice caught in his throat on the first try before he managed to shout up the stairs with as much strength as he could summon: “EMIL! WATCH OUT!” 

Then the floor to the lobby was cracking as something enormous rammed into it once, twice, three times. Rotting planks and nails pulled free from each other with a groan as two of the giant’s insectoid limbs slid into the vast room. Lalli unsheathed his rifle, watching with horror as a mass of writhing antenna, longer than he was tall three times over, slithered out from the crater, followed by the rest of the giant’s head. It resembled a centipede of gargantuan size, with furiously gnashing rows of mandibles and the tangle of undulating antenna. The sheer size of it was almost beyond comprehension. It ripped at the ancient floor, flinging chunks of wood about to and fro as it forcefully pulled them free. Soon the giant had another leg through the hole and was heaving more of its huge form through the opening. 

Some instinct was warning Lalli they’d never make it through the lobby and past the giant. It was too massive to dodge. Too huge to fight. He dropped the rifle and lunged for the stairs, ignoring the accompanying stab in his side as he fought for distance as the giant’s barbed legs streamed into the stairwell and began yanking chunks of wall from the frame. 

*******************************

On the top floor, Emil shoved the heavy aluminum door to the stairwell open. The view beyond the window was forgotten. He was drawing a breath to return the scout’s call when the building seemed to shake around him. He had heard the scout’s shout a moment before the first shudder rumbled through the floor, and now it felt like the place was being hit with a minor earthquake. 

“Lalli!” Emil raced down the stairs, nearly tripping in the dark, his voice swallowed up by a great din from below, the sound of dismembering wood and shuddering metal. It had to be the giant. Nothing else was big enough to dismantle the very building around them. It had to have somehow tracked them from underground, even timed its attack deliberately for when they came to a halt. 

And Emil had left Lalli on the ground floor, vulnerable and alone. “Lalli!” He shouted again, taking the stairs two and sometimes three at a time, one hand on the railing to guide him. 

Suddenly there was a great groaning sound and the stairs heaved under Emil. He fell backwards, landing hard, cursing when his head cracked into a step, sending bright spots of pain through his vision. The stairs continued to jostle and Emil struggled to his knees, hooking an elbow around the stair’s bannister to get some stability while the searing throb in the back of his skull subsided enough for him to move again. 

It was risky to use the flamethrower inside, especially in such confined space, but Emil didn’t care. Sightless in the dark and with Lalli in unknown danger, he was panicking. 

The smell of lighter fluid stung his nostrils as the flamethrower became a spigot of fire, blasting into the stairwell with a sudden wash of searing heat and light that stunned Emil’s eyes. As the flames streamed from the nozzle and the white spots cleared from his vision, Emil peered over the edge of the careening stairs into the depths below. 

Lalli was about halfway up to the third floor, struggling to get higher as the staircase was yanked to and fro beneath him. Orange glow of the fire reflected off the smooth shell of the giant in a way that seemed surreal and garish to Emil’s dazed mind. It had smashed through the stairwell and dismantled half of the wall in the process. Segmented antenna wrapped like tentacles around the bannister and were tugging the stairwell’s base from the wall. The giant continued to pull, and Emil could now place the metallic groaning as the stairs being ripped directly from its fastenings with every heave the giant made. 

Emil half-slid, half-ran down the stairs, trying to reach Lalli before the giant. The wounded scout was trying gamely to make it up but was having a hard time doing more than just hanging on as the giant attacked. An especially jarring swing nearly sent Lalli tumbling to the giant as another set of bolts gave way beneath the onslaught, yanking the stairs another few inches from the wall. 

“Hang on! I’ve almost got you!” Emil was closing the distance between them rapidly when the giant heaved more of its bulk onto the stairs, gripping the railing now with its many mandibles and antenna both, and gave a great tug down. There was a creaking of metal as a length of old iron railing was snapped in twain. 

Emil let go of the flamethrower trigger and realized belatedly and with confusion that there was still light in the tunnel. Some feet above him, the interior upper wall of the stairwell had caught ablaze. 

_This is why Sigrun always says never to use the flamethrower indoors_ , he realized desperately, as the fire began to spread rapidly along the ancient drywall. 

The giant screeched in rage, furious that its prey continued to elude it. The great centipede body lurched further into the stairwell as it tried to dislodge the metal rod from its maw, its many legs scrabbling to gain hold in the confined space. The antennas lashed around, seeking additional purchase on the staircase. 

Fire above, giant below. It was a clear choice to Emil. Lalli seemed to agree. The scout took advantage of the giant’s momentary distraction to begin climbing upwards again, more on his knees than his feet but moving all the same. Lalli was almost within Emil’s reach when one of the giant’s lashing antenna wrapped around his leg and pulled him harshly down. 

Lalli cried out when he hit the stairs, the impact stunning him. He stopped moving. The scout’s left hand was still holding onto a stair railing but the grip slackened as the giant tugged at its catch, the antenna coiled around his leg like a massive snake. 

Emil reached Lalli just as the dazed scout’s grip on the railing gave out entirely. He lunged forward as the giant pulled its captive backward, landing hard on his own stomach and seizing wildly for Lalli. Emil’s hand wrapped around Lalli’s forearm a split second before the giant dragged the scout out of reach entirely. 

He held onto Lalli with all his strength, one hand clenched around the scout’s arm, the other hooked around of the bannister’s vertical railings. The iron dug into Emil’s elbow painfully at the force being exerted on it. The giant bellowed, angered anew at the sudden resistance when its prey was already in grip. Emil nearly gagged at the putrid smell of the creature’s exhalations, but he did not let go of Lalli. 

Unfortunately they could measure in heartbeats how long until Emil inevitably lost his own grip and they both went tumbling into the giant’s mouth. It was just too overpowering for anything more defensive than buying more than a few dwindling seconds. 

Emil coughed and his hold on Lalli gave out a little, his hand sliding from Lalli’s forearm to his wrist as the giant tugged at the prone body. Lalli, coming back to his senses, hissed through clenched teeth but fumbled around for something on his body with his free arm. Emil saw the reflection of fire glint off the silver edge of Lalli’s hunting knife as the scout drew it from its sheath. 

Lalli faced the giant as best as he could, suspended between it and Emil, and began hacking at the tentacle coiled around his leg. The yellow antenna was covered in the same slick insectoid armor as the giant’s legs. The blade slid right off the surface with a metallic clang that made Emil wince. But the effort to trap such relatively lean prey as the scout’s leg had forced the antenna to bend to an extreme angle. The flexible segments were strained where they connected, soft interior exposed by wide cracks in the plates. Lalli pried the tip of the knife into one such crevasse and dug the blade into the unprotected flesh beneath. 

The giant screeched again, sounding to Emil as if it were incredulous that its insignificant victim had managed to inflict pain onto it, but it did not release the scout. His hand was beginning to give out from the strain of holding onto Lalli, and Lalli’s wrist was in danger of being crushed or his leg disconnected at the hip at this rate. Emil wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer and then Lalli - 

\- Lalli would be gone forever. 

There was a surge of heat overhead. The stairwell’s walls were disintegrating into debris, unable to hold together any longer in the face of the flames and damage done by the thrashing giant. The fire was beginning to lap toward the ceiling. Overheard, the side wall began to crack. Chunks of red-hot wood began tumbling to the staircase and floor below. A smoldering block ricocheted off the railing just a few feet ahead of Emil, sending a shower of cinders down around him and Lalli, singing his hair and eyelashes. 

A beam, caught ablaze and its weight no longer supported by the rapidly crumbling wall, went falling down in a great frenzy of ash and crackling sparks to land across the exposed mouth of the giant. The giant immediately recoiled, its antenna unwinding from Lalli and lashing protectively around its face as it screamed. 

Lalli, inhumanly tough, still reacted quicker than Emil. The scout clumsily sheathed the knife and dragged himself toward better purchase on the staircase with a groan, getting both knees firmly planted the precarious surface. Emil sat up as well, his hand still held fast to Lalli’s left wrist as he fought to get air in his lungs. The stairwell was becoming thick with smoke and he coughed, dizzy. 

Below, the giant’s frenzy was wrecking more havoc. Huge as it was, the giant couldn’t easily backtrack out of the narrow stairwell. Twisted metal remains of stairs and piles of debris torn from the wall only made giant’s attempts to extract itself from the room more obscured. Trapped and seemingly growing frantic, the giant began thrashing around in the only direction left: Up. The creature’s massive head swung through the remains of the stairwell’s doorway. Burning wood exploded at the impact and left a much wider exit in the dilapidated wall. 

The giant, its head finally free from the stairwell, retracted like an eel into the crater left in the floor. The last sight of it Emil had was of one enormous barbed legs, glowing orange and oily in the firelight, waving almost languidly in the air before disappearing into the cavernous hole in the floor. 

A great snapping overhead reminded Emil there was no time to celebrate the giant’s departure. An upward glance confirmed his fears: The ceiling and outer wall had been completely engulfed in flames. The entire building was coming down. 

The scout was flinching way from the embers tumbling down the stairs, wheezing as he half-fell into Emil. With his free hand, Emil shielded the scout’s face from the sparks as the scout coughed weakly into his chest. Emil looked around, desperate. Lalli was in bad shape. The smoke and the crack against the staircase was making Emil’s own head spin. The building was turning critical around them. They needed to scale the ruined staircase and get outside before the ceiling caved in entirely. 

Emil half-dragged the scout with him down the steps. In his bleary vision, the cinders raining down seemed beautiful, like burning snowflakes that gently wafted by. The heat was almost intolerable. It was so tempting to lay down and stop moving in the face of that oppressive heat but Lalli, he had to get Lalli out. 

They had barely reached the base when they were greeted an ominous creaking from above. The flames had eaten their way through the building’s interior. The lobby’s ceiling was ablaze. Smoke cloyed the air. There wasn’t a great distance to the exit, but an inferno reigned overhead. Emil was practically carrying Lalli now, his chest aching and his attempts to breathe mostly ending with a painful, wheezing cough. 

He had no voice left for a warning when he saw the ceiling begin to collapse just a few meters from the exit. He could only shove Lalli to the floor and protectively dive on top of him as a sudden torrent of burning logs began to crash down, sending a torrent of sparks everywhere as the ceiling bottomed out. 

Emil shielded Lalli's head as he lay across the scout, flinching at the impact of falling debris clattering around them. Something heavy landed on his back, knocking what little breath he had left out of him and leaving him gasping for air. There was a slight chill that cut through the heat, the intoxicating flicker of wind and fresh air from beyond the doorway. It was too little, too late. The cleanser couldn't draw a breath. His lungs were on fire. He was sluggish, awake but no longer cognizant of what surrounded him. Fiery snowflakes fell around him, their light going dark as they landed on the floor. 

Something was happening in the faraway world beyond the burning building. Through half-open eyes Emil saw the snow flare into sharp white illumination as bright light carved across it. Twin beams seemed to coalesce into one as they approached, flooding the interior of the building as they swung around to point inward. Emil stared dazedly into this impossibly bright light, uncomprehending, until finally giving up the struggle and giving himself in to the comforting darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

It was apparent to Sigrun even ahead of 16:00 that Emil wasn’t going to walk back out of the city. She could read it in the dormancy around their small encampment just outside the border. The captain had stood sentry ever since they arrived, stationed between the tank’s headlights and intently watching the roads. Flurries of snow wafted down to gather on her uniform and the chilled barrel of her rifle, melting in her red hair. Around her, they cast tiny shadows in the bright high beams as they fell past. Everything was so quiet that she could even hear their soft drift around her. The silence and the stillness was all-encompassing. It was immovable. So it hadn’t surprised her when, at 16:00, no exhausted Swede, infinitely stubborn and stalwart to a fault, materialized from the ruins to greet them.

No one appeared by 17:00. Half an hour later, at 17:30, when darkness had all but entirely fallen and the tank’s radar remained as empty as ever, the point had been well driven home. 

When Mikkel appeared to somberly update her for the sixth time that they were now an additional fifteen minutes past the agreed-upon departure hour, Sigrun knew the time had come to relent. Her limbs were stiff from standing so long in the cold. They ached when she turned around to follow the medic back into the tank. The silence was just as cloying indoors. Sigrun clomped the snow from her boots against the aluminum floor and pulled the heavy door shut, the sound unnaturally loud. She could feel the crew—what scraps were left of it—watching her, awaiting her decision. Decision? Was there even any choice left to her? Sigrun chose to watch the empty streets through the window, electing not to meet any of the gazes she could feel weighing so heavily on her. 

“We’ve given him as long as we can. It’s past time we go.” 

Sometime later, she sat alone and brooding in the worn leather of the co-pilot’s chair. The crew wisely kept their distance. She was radiating a black mood into the atmosphere like a poisonous miasma. Even Tuuri abandoned her typical post in the pilot’s seat to escape ground zero. Conversation in the tank had been kept only to the necessities as Mikkel had passed out dry rations. The evenings were usually spent mapping out the next day’s route. Sigrun, for once, did not insist on it, and no one else was brave enough to propose it. 

Instead, the captain lurked up front and stared out of the dashboard, watching the moonlit forest without really seeing it. Sigrun was a seasoned enough soldier to know things would feel a little better tomorrow, but for right now, tomorrow seemed an impossible distance away. 

There was a slow grinding slide of metal-on-metal from behind her and an accompanying blast of frigid winter air. In his attempts to open the door quietly, Reynir was only ensuring the process took even longer and became all the more noticeable. Sigrun stifled the urge to shout at him just for existing. The useless kid was at least good at remembering to take Kitty out to relieve herself, even that was the only thing he was useful for. Maybe he just wanted to get away from the tension in the tank, a sentiment Sigrun couldn’t really fault him for. She wished there was a way for her to escape it, too. 

She was begrudgingly reaching for the area map—perhaps studying routes to the extraction point would help occupy her racing thoughts—when she heard the dead weight shout from outside. 

“What bloody now?” the captain growled to Mikkel as they met in the entryway and made for the open hatch, the medic pausing to grab the mask the Finn had of course forgotten to take with him. Yet while the past two days had braced Sigrun for ill luck, this time, something small and hopeful stirred in her chest: Reynir sounded excited, not frightened. 

Sigrun grabbed the Skald by the collar to stop her from dashing outside without first checking for danger—Gods, the survival instincts of these rookies!—and stepped into the chill air. 

“Look!” Reynard was pointing at the sky north of their location and babbling in enthusiasm that rendered him nearly rendered him incoherent with his accent. “There, above the city!” 

Sigrun gaped, open-mouthed like a loony. The vivid streaks were well on their way to a downward trajectory by the time they were all assembled outside the tank but the sight was unmistakable: Two bright signal flares, their smoke trails an arrow pointing the way toward their launcher, somewhere in the city. 

_Two!_

Mikkel was a step ahead of her. 

“Before we rush in there, I want to strongly caution you against storming in.” Sigrun jumped a little when his large hand was suddenly on her shoulder, so intent was she on the lingering image of the flares. 

“We don’t know the situation in there,” the medic continued. “But we do know that something severely delayed Emil in getting back. And it’s going to be vastly more dangerous at night trying to navigate through there. It’s almost the _exact_ same advice you gave Emil yourself, about not making an uninformed mad dash after Lalli. It was good advice.” 

She didn’t tear her eyes from the sight in the sky. “You’re not suggesting we don’t go.” 

Mikkel seemed a little taken aback at the flat tone. The hand withdrew from her shoulder. It had not been delivered it as a question. “What are the odds of you listening to me if I am?” 

She had to hesitate at that. Only a foolish leader ignored her adviser’s view without consideration. And she knew where he was speaking from. As Mikkel said, she had just had this very same conversation with Emil. There were the rest of the crews’ lives to consider, to say nothing of the random civilian they had managed to pick up along the way. Three lives, not counting her own, balanced against only two. And Sigrun _did_ value her own life. She felt guilty admitting it, but it was the certain truth. She didn’t want to die out here either. 

Call it three and a half lives, then. Balanced against only two. Again Sigrun found herself using bloody _math_ to dictate the value of two mens’ lives. Simple arithmetic to decide if her men garnered rescue or abandonment. 

What had Emil told her earlier? That he had learned bravery from her. Could the student really have already outpaced the teacher? Sigrun was humbled. It was a most unsavory feeling. 

_Math is for idiots, anyway._ “The odds are abysmal. But this whole mission has been running on a cough of prayer anyway, and we’ve all made it this far.” Sigrun clapped her own hand on Mikkel’s shoulder. Suddenly it was easy to breathe again. The decision, having been made, felt like finally giving into an inevitable current. She could never abandon the boys. That just wasn't the sort of captain she wanted to be. “I think you will find your time better spent helping me figure out how we’re going to get out of there in one piece.” 

Mikkel didn’t quite smile, but the lines around his face eased into an approximation of one. “I’ll see what I can come up with. If I really can’t advise you otherwise.” 

He was still feeling resistant, but it was not ground she intended to concede, or time she intended to waste. _Two flares._ Two flares was the signal requesting a two-person extraction. _Could Emil have really found the scout?_ The possibility didn’t seem to fit in her mind. It was a strangely shaped object, incongruent with reality, for she had in truth already accepted the scout as irrecoverable. They all had, really, even Reynir and Tuuri. All of them except Emil. 

“We’re not abandoning him. Not while we know he’s still alive. Not when they _both_ might still be alive.” 

They hadn’t done much in the way of setting up camp so there was little delay before Tuuri had the tank running. Tense silence fell over the party, a default for past several days, but this time the tension had an edge of anticipation. Sigrun hovered behind Tuuri, probably encroaching on the poor skald, yet unable to tear herself away from the den and too jittery to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. 

Tuuri and Reynir had shared Sigrun’s sentiment, leaving Mikkel effectively outvoted three-to-one in favor of setting out for Emil. For once, Sigrun was grateful for the pair’s youthful, brash attitudes. The team departed for the city only minutes after Reynir had first spotted the flares, the moonlight lending aid to the tank’s foggy headlights as they begin to carefully navigate a path inward. Tuuri was to move cautiously, with as little disruption as possible. 

It was the first time they had voluntarily travelled at night. The terrain was difficult. Though the streets were relatively clear at the outset, the further in they travelled in, the more frequently Tuuri had to reverse and try a new direction to circumvent some obstacle in their way. Overturned cars and crumbling buildings frequently spilled into the road. The Skald was rigidly focused on her task. Sigrun dug her fingers into the back of the pilot chair, the worn vinyl threatening to tear to a hole at the pressure. 

They hadn’t encountered any rooted enemies since they arrived days prior. But something _was_ here, Sigrun realized, now that she was scrutinizing the ruins around them. A city that’s simply been deserted doesn’t have so much destruction. Abandoned cars, yes. Buildings left rotting, but intact. Here, even the streets under them seemed cracked and uneven beneath the heavy treads of the tank. This place had seen violence. Lots of it. She had failed to notice it earlier, under the deceptive veneer of peace the city offered. She had taken the lack of enemies as a promise of an easy time and relaxed her guard, never questioning _why_ and _how_ a city seemingly empty of life looked like a war zone. She was such a fool. 

“Oy. Check it out.” Sigrun came from around Tuuri’s chair to the center of the den to stand at the Skald’s side. 

“I see it.” Tuuri’s affirmation was grim. The Skald didn’t brake, but Sigrun would see her posture grow tenser. 

“What is it?” Mikkel, stationed to keep watch over their flank from the port window, couldn’t see what was being discussed. 

“There’s a fire toward the north. You can see the glow and smoke from here.” If Sigrun had any doubts that it was Emil who had sent out the signal flares, the follow-up pyrotechnics certainly confirmed it. “It has to be him. We’re going to approach slowly, _carefully,_ and see what we see. If the place is wrecked or swarming, we leave. I promise.” She punctuated this last for Mikkel’s benefit. It wouldn’t do to start arguments, not when potentially walking into a hostile situation. She needed her crew to know there was a limit to the risk she was willing to ask of them. “Tuuri, take us in. Let’s try to make it quick. Fire may scare off the locals for a few minutes but if they’re hungry enough, they’ll be back soon.” 

Soon the luminous orange billow of smoke dominated the view from the dash. The smell of char seeped through the tank’s vents. Reynir and Mikkel gave up their posts at the windows and joined Sigrun and Tuuri in the cabin. Their slow progresses was maddening. The conditions of the roads had deteriorated horribly as they drew further north. Sigrun prayed they wouldn’t need to make a swift retreat back. Anything running them down could easily overtake them at this snail’s pace. 

“That’s far enough. Stop the tank.” Sigrun’s fingers, having migrated from the back of the Skald’s chair to her shoulder instead, unconsciously dug in a little further. “Get too close, we’ll be in danger of getting caught if the whole thing comes down. And keep the engine running.” 

Tuuri decelerated and the tank began groaning to a halt. High beams cut a bright path into the open entrance of the enflamed building before them. Sigrun glared through the windshield. Fire roared toward the sky, a beacon to anything within leagues that there was vulnerable life here. The building couldn’t have long before it would be reduced to ash. The smoke was getting dense even at the ground level. It shifted and gurgled through the light, a writhing fog, making it so bloody hard to _see_ anything. 

“There.” Reynir leaned over Mikkel in the co-pilot’s chair to point through the window. “There’s something on the ground. Right there, you can kind of see it near the entrance.” 

“It might be rubble.” Tuuri was squinting, frowning. The steering wheel vibrated beneath her hands as the engine idled. The entire crew crowded around the dashboard, scrutinizing the unmoving lump Reynir had pointed out. 

“The building is collapsing. It’s likely just debris.” Mikkel echoed Tuuri’s skepticism, but his own hands were clenched tightly in his lap, Sigrun noticed. The usual calm indifference was strained. 

“It’s shiny. Ceiling beams aren’t reflective. Our uniforms are.” Sigrun released her grip on Tuuri and turned, making for the hatch door. “Mikkel, with me. You two, stay put. Be ready to bolt out the very moment we get back.” 

The captain carried a rifle. Mikkel went unarmed. The heat was like the hot blast of a furnace when she pulled the tank hatch open, roaring through the winter chill to make her eyes and nostrils sting. The flames had engulfed an entire side of the building and most of its top. The crackles and hissing of smoldering wood and fire filled the air and Sigrun didn’t bother trying to shout over it. She slogged forward through the slush of melted snow, eyes growing teary from the haze. 

Gradually the shape on the ground gained definition as they approached. An ominous _crack!_ overhead had them both flinching back, Sigrun nearly stumbling into Mikkel. The medic braced her as she tripped, his hands propping her until she regained her footing. When the building was still standing a few heartbeats later she pressed on, reassured by Mikkel’s stoic presence at her back. They were close enough now to almost trip over what lay in their path. 

The medic drew a breath to say something but the attempt gave way to a thick cough. Sigrun was already filling in the words for him, her own voice hoarse. 

“I can’t believe it.” Even standing and staring with her own eyes she couldn’t believe it. “The little punk actually did it.” 

Mikkel and Sigrun together moved the fallen beam that pinned Emil down. One end of the heavy support had landed across his shoulders and flamethrower, narrowly missing his head. Not that it was likely to have left a dent in that thick rock skull anyway. The second mercy was that the beam, while charred, had not caught flame before it fell. The cleanser himself lay shielding a second form that Sigrun again doubted her own eyes to see: A lean figure, bloodied and filthy in a white coat, but whole. Their lost scout, miraculously pulled back from the clutches of the dead world by Emil's sheer bloody stubborn force of will and hope. 

She knelt beside the pair as Mikkel tried to wave away some of the smoke pooling around them. Sigrun pulled a glove off and slid two fingers into Emil’s black turtleneck, feeling for a pulse. She made a mental note to say an extra prayer to the gods when the beat thrummed rapid and shallow under her touch. The cleanser was alive. Beneath Emil’s arm, the scout stirred with a pained noise, the faintest glint of a silver eye turning toward them beneath a sweat-drenched tangle of hair. 

“Let’s get them out of here.” Sigrun had to raise her voice to be heard over the crumbling building and regretted it, the smoke immediately making her feel choked. 

She and Mikkel each hooked an arm under the cleanser’s shoulders and lifted the prone form. Sigrun intended to carry them straight out, one each, but Emil had a hand clenched around Lalli’s wrist that made it impossible to separate the two. Even knocked out, he was unwilling to let go of his grip on the scout. Sigrun plucked at his fingers, cursing at the time lost in having to break the grip one by one as embers and burning wood continued to rain down. 

Finally she got the pair separated, and Mikkel hoisted Emil over one shoulder. The cleanser’s arms dangled down the medic’s back, swaying limply as the Dane trudged forward through the muddy slush toward the tank. Sigrun was about to do the same with Lalli when she rolled the scout over and hissed at the widespread bloodstains on the white jacket. Lalli must have suffered a bite, a bad one. _Still, small toll to pay to come back from the dead_ , she told the scout silently. The man had extra lives to spare like a cat. 

She was deliberating how to best pick him up without knowing the extent of the damage when someone appeared at her side. 

“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the tank?” She demanded at Reynir even as they each moved to one side of the scout. It was much easier to move the tall figure with one of Lalli’s arms slung around each of their shoulders, and they began to follow Mikkel. 

“I wanted to help them, too.” 

Sigrun spared a glance at Reynir. His face was flushed, no doubt from the oppressive heat, and beneath his face mask she could see a muscle working in his jaw, but he looked resolute. More than she could recall having ever seen him. 

It must be awful to be not be a nonimmune and condemned to the sidelines, she realized suddenly. Sigrun could only really cope with her own stress through action. Being made to sit idle would be torturous. Even the past two days' inactivity had left her wanting to gnaw her arm off at the elbow, so miserable was the feeling of being trapped. “We’ll talk about the insubordination later. Help me carry him.” She wasn’t sure Reynir could hear her over the surrounding din, but the Icelander would understand her point. _At least he remembered the mask this time_. 

Sigrun did end up grateful for the useless kid’s help after all. The melted snow had turned to a thick quagmire that sucked at their boots with every step. It was a slog trying to carry the scout back. How such a twiggy little scout managed to be so heavy as dead weight was a true marvel of physics. Tuuri was already helping Mikkel navigate through the entrance with Emil. She _shrieked_ when she saw the form suspended between Sigrun and Reynir, and the captain had to remind her to be gentle when Tuuri practically tackled them. 

“We can freak out later.” Sigrun peered into the tank, waiting for Mikkel to carry Emil into the barracks before she and Reynir followed with Lalli. “Even Emil's probably not enough of a pyromaniac to set a building on fire while still inside it just for fun. Remember the plan.” 

Tuuri was beginning to reply when the ground shuddered beneath their feet. The sudden vibration rocked the tank, sending the skald tumbling into Reynir and all four of them nearly to the ground. Something loud and brassy reminiscent of a ship’s horn resounded through the din of the fire, muffled as though it came from beneath their feet. 

The three conscious members of the crew looked at each other, confusion being replaced swiftly by fear on the expressions of the two junior members. Reynir in particular went a special shade of bloodless pale in the face. 

Sigrun didn’t want to give them enough time to start panicking. She needed to head it off at the pass before the situation went irrecoverable. “ _The plan_ ,” she reminded Tuuri quickly in her most authoritative tone, pointing toward the pilot’s den. 

Mikkel met them in the doorway. “What was—”

“Let's worry about it later.” Sigrun shrugged out from under Lalli’s arm and handed the prone form off to Mikkel, following Tuuri into the pilot’s den. 

“I don’t know how well I can drive over another one of those earthquakes. Our treads aren’t in the best condition.” Tuuri was gratifying competent. Sigrun was relieved that she was thinking ahead to logistics instead of getting distracted with useless trivialities like fear. 

“Just stay calm and get us out of here as fast as you can safely. Steady progress is more important than fast progress if speed means we wind up stuck in a ditch.” 

The tank lurched and sputtered and finally heaved into motion, its treads crunching loudly over the snow as Tuuri revved the engine into a forward gear. Once it was apparent her nerves were steady, Sigrun gave her a thumb’s up and left to join Mikkel in the barracks with their recovered soldiers. Reynir was hovering around in the way and she sent him to keep watch over at tank’s side window. Not that they were likely to see the attack coming, if there was to be one. 

Destroyed roads. Quakes in the ground. Roving predators instead of any rooted hives. It finally all came together. This city wasn’t free of Rash nests; the entire city was one massive, teeming nest, right under their feet. 

The pair was in rough shape, came Mikkel’s formal prognosis. Emil was bruised, with a bloody spot on the back of his head that would hurt something awful. The cleanser’s breath was rapid and harsh, with a wheezing edge – a symptom of smoke inhalation, the medic explained. Possibly serious, but he would likely be fine. 

Lalli appeared the worse off. Mikkel had laid the scout on Tuuri’s bunk to examine him. The amount of blood loss was evident in the saturated coat and field dressing that Mikkel removed from his side, exposing the wound below. A single round hole, as though a bullet. She and Mikkel exchanged looks at that, though neither voiced a theory. Mikkel took to cleaning the wound as Sigrun fetched the first aid supplies from the equipment hold. A dark bruise was already appearing on the scout’s wrist where Emil had gripped him. 

The two of them collectively looked like fresh minced meat that Tuuri had run over with the tank, then backed up over a few more times, just for good measure...but they were alive. 

When all the wounds had been sterilized and stitched up, Mikkel went to join Tuuri in the front. Sigrun lingered behind a moment, regarding the two soldiers. Some irrational part of her was afraid they would vanish as soon as she turned her back on them, so amazed was she to see them again. After a few minutes she flicked the barracks light off and went to join the rest of the team up front as the tank continued forward in slow, but mercifully unhindered, progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally to be the last chapter, but I decided to go ahead break it up into two. Also a title change I've been meaning to get around to for ages. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading, it means a lot.


	10. Chapter 10

Emil woke slowly. It had become a horrible recurring event for him as of late, waking up in confusion and discomfort, his wits scattered about him. First he became aware of the pain in his chest and throat, then of the wretched ache in his skull. The sight around him was bleary but familiar, and he should be able to place it, but thoughts were slippery and kept evading his grasp. He was in a room, dark, with only a thin sliver of light creeping in. Voices came from beyond a nearby door, familiar ones, but they bled together into an incoherent soup and he wasn’t able to make sense of any of the words.

He lay on a thin mattress, unpleasantly damp with sweat. The blanket over him felt stifling. How did he get here? He felt exhausted and overheated, it was almost impossible to keep his eyes open, but something insistent nudged at him. Memories of fire and peril bubbled up to the surface, hazy recollections that he could only partially recall. Something sinister underground. Something strange in the city. Cloying smoke all around. Destruction. Danger. 

He was still choking on the smoke. His breath kept hitching in his throat. His memories were of fire, but now he felt like he was drowning, panic beginning to slice through the fuzziness of reality with its chilling edge. Emil tried to push himself to a sitting position but his body didn’t seem to want to obey him. His arms were weak, his chest felt like it was in a vice. He couldn’t sit up, couldn’t catch his breath even when gasping for air. He was suffocating. 

Then a cool touch was on his face, the faintest brush against his flushed cheek. Emil, delirious, flinched away. The fingers quickly withdrew, but only for a moment. The hands returned on his upper arms, fingers clenching into him almost painfully. This time the contact felt as an anchor. Emil’s flailing mind latched gratefully onto the touch like a lifeline, using it to steady himself. He wasn’t drowning. The air here was fresh. The bleariness and pain in his chest remained but the panic began to ebb, beat by beat. 

After a few moments where Emil managed to pull his bearings together into something resembling cognition, he attempted again to sit up. The hands braced him and this time he made it into an upright position. Even in near-darkness the resulting sense of vertigo threatened to send him sideways once more, but the hands held him upright until the worst of the dizziness passed. The sense of suffocating eased; he began to breathe easier. 

The touch on his back disappeared and Emil felt a flutter of fear again at being left alone. It was back quickly, with fingertips on his arm that guided his hand until he was touching the cool surface of an aluminum mug. 

“ _Juoda_ ,” a voice told him, insistent. 

Emil tried to grasp the cup but his fingers were numb, the grip weak. A hand closed around his own and helped guide the mug to his lips. The water was cold fire to his raw throat, an icy cauterization that first seared and then helped his breath come a little easier after, the wheezing edge lessening a bit. 

The hand and the mug withdrew. Emil could feel the weight of fatigue closing in on him and he reclined on the bed again, still feeling confused and out of sorts but now with a warm sense of reassurance. The metal frame of Emil’s cot creaked lightly as someone settled at its side, reclining against the edge with weary sigh that echoed Emil’s own exhaustion. He could just barely discern the lean silhouette in the dim light of the room, close enough to be within his arm’s reach. Comforted by the presence, Emil let himself give in to sleep. 

****************************** 

Emil woke for the second time feeling more clearheaded. This time he recognized immediately a sight that sent his heart jumping into his throat: The stained, ancient wooden paneling and worn cots of the tank’s barracks. It might have been the most beautiful sight of his life. 

The door to the room had been left half-open, the light strong enough to see by even if his vision was still bleary. A pitcher of water and a mug, its sides dripping with condensation, were on the floor near the foot of his bed. Between the dreams of fire and the dreams that someone was beckoning him back to the city, Emil had dreamed that someone was watching over him, but he was alone now in the room. The tank was still, lacking the rhythmic hum that vibrated through the walls anytime it was in motion. They must have made camp somewhere. There were voices beyond the door, and this time he could place them: Sigrun and Tuuri. 

He coughed as he dragged himself out of the cot, his entire body rebelling against the movement. Emil couldn’t recall ever being so sore. He felt overly warm and the cold air was a welcome relief on his bare skin as he shrugged off the blanket that had been left covering him. He was shirtless, and some instinctive need for modesty had him looking about for at least his uniform jacket, but it wasn’t within sight and he couldn’t bring himself to put on one of the thick woolen sweaters. He could feel the effort of the previous day—or however long ago it had been since the nightmare trek through the city—in every pained muscle as he pulled the door the remainder of the way open. 

Sigrun was leaning against the radio station and saying something to Tuuri, seated in the desk chair opposite her. The tall woman halted mid-sentence as Emil limped through the door, her deep violet eyes turning toward him. 

“ _Buddy!_ ”

Following Sigrun’s shout, the rest of the attention in the room was soon on him as well. He was only barely cognizant of Tuuri’s sudden thrilled exclamation and Reynir’s shout from the pilot’s den, a welcome cacophony that took him back some with the enthusiasm. Emil’s own attention was instead reserved for the only member of the crew to remain quiet at the cleanser’s appearance. 

Lalli was sitting on the desk near the side window, Emil’s missing jacket wrapped around his shoulders like a blanket and one knee drawn up to his chest. He was bandaged and pale, with dark circles under his eyes and an air of exhaustion, but he was here. Sitting just within arm’s reach, and safe. 

The scout did not join the sudden swarm of welcome surrounding Emil, opting instead to remain on his perch and observe, staring at the cleanser with the fierceness of a hawk. Their eyes met for a moment before Emil was almost thrown off his feet by Tuuri and Reynir bombarding him in a hug that was enthusiastic enough to almost be considered an attack. 

“Alright, _alright,_ ” Sigrun interjected loudly over the din of their greeting. “Are you two trying to choke him out? We only just now got him on his feet again.” She grabbed Reynir by the back of the shirt like the scruff of a puppy and pulled him from Emil. She gave him a shake for good measure. “Go get Mikkel from the back and tell him Emil’s awake.” 

With Reynir departed and Tuuri calming down, Emil found himself regarding Sigrun directly. The imposing captain stood with arms crossed and looked down at him with a stern expression, a corner of her mouth pulling into a frown. 

“You’re late,” she finally said, when the silence was bordering on becoming threatening. 

“The locals made for a tough crowd. I’m sorry. I broke my promise.” 

Sigrun reached out and pulled him into an embrace of her own then, the gesture more cathartic than affectionate. Emil could feel her own concern in the tight grip. Sigrun had been worried about him. It was a marvel. He didn’t realize the captain, unshakable pillar of strength that she was, could still feel nervous. That was a weakness reserved for lesser soldiers, like himself. 

“ _Don’t_ break from orders like that again,” the captain said, holding him at arms’ length, the violet eyes flickering across his face as she studied the dark bruises across his temple, the red tinge smoke had left to his eyes. At last she settled back and released him, though one hand remained on his shoulder. “I suppose I’m more proud than I am aggravated with you. _Only_ by a bit. I hate being made to worry, Emil. Here, let Mikkel get a look at you.” 

She stood aside as the Dane entered the tank, Reynir following. The medic gave Emil a solemn nod. The cleanser gratefully took a seat on the desk next to Lalli, hoisting himself up with a wince. He needed about a week of sleep, it felt. The scout inched closer to Emil, still silent, still watching him with the same intent stare. He looked almost annoyed, so fierce was the scrutiny. 

“How are you feeling?” Mikkel asked, tilting Emil’s head and checking his pupils in the bright stream of light that streamed in from the open window. 

“Not great,” Emil admitted with another cough, trying to resist the urge to blink. His eyes felt raw and singed and badly wanted to water. “But way better than I should. I thought we were dead for sure. I can’t believe you actually came back for us.” 

“Neither can I.” Sigrun returned to slouching against the radio station, watching the inspection as Mikkel moved to examine Emil’s wrist for his pulse. “Must have been a fit of madness. I guess I just couldn’t get behind abandoning my own team for the sake of _protocols_. Not when it’d mean losing the best part of it.” 

Emil felt his ears go red as he blushed. Praise from Sigrun was a rare treasure. Mikkel directed him to turn to the side so he could take a look at the bump on the back of his head. Emil found himself face to face with Lalli, the scout still giving him even more direct study than the medic seemed to be. Lalli was leaning forward just a few centimeters from Emil. Most people would probably assume Lalli’s expression to be blank, but Emil knew the scout well enough to detect the frown there. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Emil told him. “I was really worried about you.”

“Maybe now he’ll actually deign to answer some questions.” Sigrun threw her hands in the hair theatrically, clearly exasperated. “You’ve been knocked out hours longer than him and he didn’t want to budge from lurking next to you. Tuuri practically had to drag him away, and he’s still been refusing to say a word or let Mikkel check him out.” 

Emil met Lalli’s piercing grey gaze again, realizing that the aggression with which the scout was regarding him was Lalli’s own form of concern. He remembered the presence that had helped calm him down when he awoke delirious and frightened. _So it hadn’t been a dream, after all._ “Thanks for watching over me,” he said, glad his voice was already hoarse from the smoke. Sigrun hated when a member of the crew got emotional. Emil knew how important the scout was to _him_ , but had never been quite sure if the taciturn Finn reciprocated the sense of regard.

“Tuuri! Tell your cousin that Emil is clearly okay and ask if he’s willing to eat something. I’m sure he feels like ten different kinds of death but if he’s got energy enough to hover over Emil, he’s got energy enough for a debriefing so we can start mapping our exit out of here.” 

“Alright,” Tuuri said before repeating Sigrun’s words back to Lalli in Finnish, reaching over to pat her cousin’s hand reassuringly. The scout glanced from her to Emil before slowly nodding. He allowed himself to be led into the pilot’s den after another backward glance toward Emil, leaning on Tuuri a little for the support, still wearing Emil’s filched jacket. Someone, presumably Mikkel, had arranged a display of rations on the dash that had all previously failed to temp Lalli into eating. Even the sweet biscuits had been snubbed, Emil noted with a detached sort of wonder. 

Mikkel produced a stethoscope from the medical kit and without preamble, set it against Emil’s chest. The cleanser yelped at the unexpected feel of the icy disc against his skin. 

“A little warning next time?” He grumbled, but without much rancor. His breath still felt like it was coming up short and now that the excitement of seeing the rest of the crew was subsiding, he was more free to focus on how feeble and nauseous he felt. And relieved. And terrified. It was a lot to process at once. 

Mikkel raised a hand to hush Emil’s complaints as he listened through the instrument, moving it from one side of the cleanser’s chest to the other, occasionally instructing him to take a deep breath. Every time Emil attempted something more than a half-gasp he ended up doubling over in a cough. It exacerbated the pain in his head until it felt like someone was jackhammering the inside of his skull with a mallet. 

“You can have some painkillers and get back to bed after this.” Sigrun was sympathetic as she watched the process. “Mikkel’s been a little concerned about how much smoke you might have breathed in and just wants to make sure you pass inspection. Seems like you got it a lot worse than the scout.” She regarded him fondly, a smile softening the tough lines of her face. “Me, I still can’t quite believe we’re able to even have this conversation. You, and especially the scout. It’s bloody amazing that you managed to pull it off.” 

“I didn’t; Lalli did. I wouldn’t have made it out myself if it hadn’t been for him.” He shivered as Mikkel pressed the stethoscope’s resonator against his back, though not solely from the chill of the metal disc. “You wouldn’t believe what’s out there.” 

“Try me. _After_ you drink some water and Mikkel gives you something for that cough.” 

“I do believe he’ll live,” Mikkel announced, removing the disc and plucking out the earbuds. “He needs some fluids and antibiotics, and then he can answer your questions. Perhaps starting with how Lalli came to be shot.” 

Emil frowned at that but didn’t answer, and after another pat on his shoulder, the medic departed for the storage area. The captain watched the snow fall out the port window as Emil stared at the ground and tried to unravel the events of the previous day. Quiet strands of conversation in Finnish drifted from the pilot’s den, Tuuri’s gentle inquisition and Lalli’s occasional short responses. Reynir had taken a seat on the floor against the barracks door stroking Kitty, who purred like a maniac. 

It was amazing how easily they all seemed to put the past few days behind them. It must be the prerogative of soldiers to always be moving forward, Emil thought. He was back. Lalli was back. The crew was already looking ahead to what comes next. Only, Emil still felt haunted, and he suspected Lalli did too. Even with him sitting only meters away, he still couldn’t shake the sick feeling that the scout had almost been gone forever. The slightest shift in timing or luck and he would have been. And as for himself, Emil could never again go back to a time in his life where he hadn’t had to face imminent death and accept his own mortality. Would it make him more fearful in the future now that he knew? Could he be tougher instead, braver, like Sigrun and Lalli? 

Sigrun seemed to sense something of what he was thinking. “Hey,” she said, to get Emil’s attention. He looked up at her to see her watching the woods beyond the window. The city gone from view. “You did good. No one walks away from their first _really_ close scrape without some demons that need wrestling. It’s part of our burden as soldiers. But more important than that, today we’re all walking away and that was you. None of the rest of us could or would have done so much for the team.” The violet eyes met his again, warm and earnest in a way that dispelled some of the lingering chill. “You make your captain proud. She couldn’t be prouder.” 

He returned her smile. “Thanks.” 

The fell into companionable silence again until Mikkel returned from the storage, a small packet of yellow pills wrapped in gold foil in one hand and a silver canteen in the other. 

“These should help,” he said, handing them off to Emil. “Make sure you drink all the water when you take them, too.” 

“It’s a little late in the afternoon, but what do you think about changing locations?” Sigrun asked Mikkel. “We don’t need to go far, but I’d like to put some distance between us and the city before nightfall. Especially after all the pyrotechnics. And Mikkel? Don’t forget to get on the radio and update headquarters. Let them know that the crew is fit to carry on with our mission. We’re limping a bit, but we’re all here.” 

_Always looking ahead_ , Emil thought, shifting closer to the wall to give Sigrun more space to study the map laid out on the desk. It was their strength and burden both. He rested against the wooden wall of the tank and closed his eyes. There was a soft crackle of static as Mikkel flicked on the radio’s transmitter. Surrounded by his comrades and conscious of every single breath he drew—each painful, raspy, but marvelously _living_ breath—Emil was content to appreciate that he and Lalli were both still here to enjoy the blessing of an uncertain future. 

There would be other bad days. Like Sigrun said, they were soldiers. Pain and strife was their inevitability. 

Just not today. 

A sudden exclamation from Tuuri interrupted the peace in the tank. “ _Lalli, En usko sitä_!” 

“Oy!” Sigrun jolted, startled from her own concentration over the map. She glared in the direction of the den. “What’s the problem in there?” 

In the pilot’s cabin, Tuuri was staring at Lalli with a look of incredulity. Lalli was meeting her gaze almost defiantly, fists clenched, posture rigid. The skald tore her gaze from her cousin to meet Sigrun’s. “Lalli says there are _people_ in the city,” she said, switching to Swedish. “Humans. Not infected.” 

“WHAT.” Sigrun abandoned the map and turned to regard the pair in the cabin. “The scout’s out of his head; this entire region has been abandoned to the Rash for decades.” 

“He’s not.” 

Emil spoke quietly, but it was enough to garner everyone’s attention. Tuuri trailed off, letting a question to Lalli in Finnish go unfinished. There was a quiet _click_ as Mikkel carefully placed the mouthpiece of the radio back onto its base. 

The cleanser looked up at Sigrun, glancing between her stunned expression and Mikkel’s. “I came across someone’s tracks when I was returning south. I’m pretty sure they shot Lalli. They…weren’t in a position to answer questions when I found them.” 

Sigrun and Mikkel both started to talk at the same time but Emil continued, interrupting their protests. “There’s more. Before the giant attacked us, Lalli had me go check out the view from a high floor. There’s an encampment on the far side of the river. Electricity. Moving vehicles. Looked kind of like it might have been a school or something at one point. Only…” 

Emil swallowed and shook his head, wondering if _he_ was the one out of his mind. Except Lalli had seen it, too. Had sent Emil to go see it for himself. When Emil had wanted to go south, Lalli had insisted they go north. 

“Only what?” Sigrun prompted. 

“Only it looked like there were trolls being kept in captivity. There was a tall fence surrounding them, like a holding pen for sheep except seriously fortified. Barbed wire and barricades. Three or four trolls were inside. The whole place was lit up with these massive, towering lights. I’ve never seen anything like it. Lalli can back it up.” 

Tuuri was already whispering something to Lalli but the scout left the question ignored, fixated instead on the conversation between the captain and Emil. He looked a faint bit smug, vindicated perhaps that someone was on his side. Sigrun’s mouth was partially open. She seemed as though she wanted to reply, but her words had completely stalled out. She looked to Mikkel, who mirrored her own surprise with an expression of shock as animated as Emil had ever seen on the Dane. It would have been funny under different circumstances. 

“I’ll be damned,” the captain finally said. “Sounds like we aren’t the first to make it out here after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thank you so much for reading this fanfic that has taken me way too long to finish. I'm always genuinely honored that someone would be willing to take the time to check out something I wrote.
> 
> This first part ends here because it makes for a complete story featuring only the crew. From here on out there's going to be original characters and I wasn't sure how tough a sell that would be. I wanted to have a complete story with just the canon group before bringing OCs in.
> 
> Again, thank you to anyone that's read this fic. This was a lot of fun to write and I really appreciate this community. I hadn't written in years and this became my practice and motivation for doing it again. For anyone interested, I would love for you to continue reading part two, the Watchtower in the Wasteland.


End file.
